All the Things You Are
by WRTRD
Summary: Beckett's all alone in Manhattan, and Castle's in the Hamptons with Gina. Now what? All hell's about to break loose, that's what. Set in the summer between S2 and S3. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** Each chapter of this story will be inspired to some degree by a song, beginning with the exquisite "All the Things You Are." I have a rich musical life, which is about 95 percent classical, 4 percent American Songbook, and 1 percent jazz. But last year Liv Wilder introduced me to the music of Brandy Clark, and recently directed me to the song "Love Can Go to Hell" from her newest album, which inspired me to start this story and which will be the jumping off point for a future chapter. Thank you for expanding my musical horizons, Liv.

"I'm so hot," Kate Beckett says, standing in the middle of her bedroom wearing nothing but a black lace bra and a matching pair of panties so skimpy that it hardly qualifies as clothing. "I am so seriously _hot_."

She gathers her hair in both hands and pulls it up and off her glistening neck. "I'm beyond hot," she moans, and falls onto her bed.

There's no one else there. She's not assessing her sex appeal, but making a statement of fact: she's beyond hot because several hours ago her air conditioner gave up the ghost, emitting a hideous metallic death rattle before wheezing its last. Since this is the eleventh straight day of humid, 90-degree-plus weather, there isn't an A/C to be had anywhere in the Northeast. Beckett is stuck with being sticky, and she hates it. She hates it particularly because she has the weekend off with nothing to do, and no one with whom to do it. Not a soul. Everyone she knows is busy, or away, or paired up.

Especially the last one. Lanie and Espo, for instance. The worst, though, is that other pair. Them. Yes, them. Him (Castle). Her (Gina). It's been more than a month since he'd left the precinct with that woman, sailed away to the Hamptons with his bottle-blonde publisher. Not sailed away, really, more like descended into hell in the elevator while she stood and watched. She was supposed to have been the one who went to the Hamptons with him, but everything had fallen apart. She'd broken it off with Demming and was on her way to tell Castle, but there he was, hand-in-taloned-hand with Gina. Another monumental bit of miscommunication, and now there's no communication at all.

It's been more than a month. "Don't kid yourself, Kate," she says to the faintly whirring ceiling fan. "You know exactly how long it's been. Forty-three days." She checks her watch. "And three hours and eleven minutes. Not that I'm counting." It's Saturday night, and she's feeling sorry for herself. She had dug a black hole this morning, jumped in, and stayed there all day, thinking of him, thinking of all the things they might have been. All the things he is to her. "All the things you are to me, Castle, and I never told you," she says. God, she loves that song. "All the Things You Are." She stares at the fan for a while, getting glummer and glummer, and starts to sing.

 _Time and again I've longed for adventure,  
_ _Something to make my heart beat the faster,  
_ _What did I long for? I never really knew._

She sure as hell knows what she longs for now, but it's too late. She'd keep on singing, but it's hard to do lying flat on her back when her nose is running and she's crying so hard that she's choking. The coughing forces her to sit up, and she forces herself to get out of bed.

So she's alone, so it's the loneliest night of the week. Blah blah blah. It's time for her to rejoin the human race. Get dressed and go out. No big deal. She'll just go to a bar for a drink. Nothing wrong with that. It's not as though she's some kid with a fake ID who's looking to get laid. Well, maybe. Is she? No. She just wants to have a nice drink in a nice place with nice air conditioning and a nice bartender. That's all. Not a cop bar either, where half the faces are familiar and everything smells of spilled beer.

What was that little place she'd read about? Over by the Highline, that opened last year? Had a joke in the name. Ah, I'll Take Manhattan, that's it. Does everyone there drink Manhattans? Maybe. Not her, though. She takes a quick shower, and puts on some light makeup and a short summer dress. It bares her shoulders and her knees, but it's just right. A little flirty, but not slutty. So what if she's wearing fuck-me shoes? They make her feel good. It's summer and she's blue and she'll be sitting down, so no one will see her feet anyway.

She needs a drink.

Because so many people clear out of town on summer weekends, she has no trouble getting a cab. She'd walk to the bar, but she'd melt before she was halfway there, and the A/C in the taxi is so good that she considers asking what it would cost to drive around all night. She doesn't, only partly because the cabbie has been talking nonstop to some buddy of his and she can't take any more of his commentary on his somewhat unsavory social life.

The interior of the bar is cooler than the inside of the cab, in every way, everything dark blue and gray and silver. There's a good crowd but it's not crowded, and whoever was in charge of the acoustics deserves a bonus because the noise isn't noise at all, but a low and pleasant buzz. Which is exactly what she hopes her drink will give her. The brushed-nickel bar is curved at the far end, and she takes a seat there. She's essentially in the shadows, so she can see others but they can't see her properly unless they're really looking. The bartender looks too young even to be in here, never mind serving, but when he gets closer she realizes that he's probably in his late 20s. He's cute, but a little too dimpled for her tastes.

"Good evening," he says.

"Hi."

"What can I get you?"

Good, no dopey conversation, just to the point. "Glenlivet, straight up, please."

"Be right with you." He's back quickly, and sets the glass in front of her. "I didn't have you pegged for a Scotch drinker."

"Yeah? What did you have me pegged for?"

"Cosmo."

"Me? A _Sex in the City_ girl? Woman? God, no."

"Well, you know your single malt."

"Funny, 'cause I never drink it." She takes a sip, runs the tip of her tongue over her lips and the tip of a finger around the rim of the glass.

"Yeah? What do you usually drink?"

"Maker's Mark. Really I'm mostly a wine drinker, but I dunno, just wanted something with more punch tonight, I guess. I have a friend—had a friend who likes it. Loves it. Glenlivet. I've been thinking about him."

"Outta sight but not outta mind, eh? Sorry to hear it."

"It shows, huh? What gave me away?"

"I'm older than I look. I've got twelve years' sizing people up from the other side of the barstools. Plus, it's a pretty cold day in hell when someone who looks like you is in here alone. Don't worry, I'm not hitting on you." He holds up his left hand, and the ring on his fourth finger tells her that he's off the market.

"Well, it's hotter than hell out, so." She takes a healthy sip and looks down at her own unadorned hands. "Anyway. Don't let me keep you from your other customers."

"Not too busy in here tonight. The weather, mainly. People are home hugging their air conditioners."

"Tell me about it. Mine's broken." Another sip. "Not the only thing that's broken," she mumbles.

"That bad, huh? I'd offer to punch the guy in the nose for you but I'm not much of a fighter."

"I always thought I was, too, but this time." Sip. "Meh. Fight's gone out of me." She's quiet for a minute, then takes another sip. "He went off with her. That was that. Just left. See ya." She waves feebly and he gives her a sympathetic nod. She can't believe she's saying all this to a bartender, except the anonymity of it is liberating. It feels so good to unload, even a little—and for her, a little is a lot. This Scotch is sensational, too; no wonder Castle loves it. She takes another sip and, huh? Her glass is empty? She lifts it up. "I'll have another, please."

Every couple of minutes he comes back to check on her. She can't decide if she feels better or worse than she did, but when she's at the bottom of her second drink she says to the bartender, "He invited me to his beach house for the weekend."

"This would have been a good one to be there. I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"No, not this weekend. The, you know, holiday." She can't quite come up with the name. She can't quite come up with when she last ate, either, but it might have been half a piece of toast at breakfast. "Could I have another, please?"

He raises an eyebrow. "You sure?"

"What kind of a bartender asks are you sure?"

"One who's afraid you might have had your limit."

She puts her forehead on the sleek metal surface of the bar. "I am so pathetic." She picks her head up. "Do you have any coffee?"

"You bet. Maybe not quite as good as that Scotch, but better for you right now."

What a nice guy. Nice like Castle except neither one is available. When he brings her the coffee they chat for a while about nothing in particular. He tends to some other customers and brings her another cup. "Thanks," she says. "I remember the holiday," she adds sheepishly.

"Fourth of July, right? Last week."

"No. Before. Memorial Day. He invited me for Memorial Day. He said 'I promise, no funny stuff.' No funny stuff, can you believe it? I wanted that funny stuff, believe me. And I broke up with this other guy 'cause I realized he was just a place holder for this guy, you know? And I didn't tell him in time and there he went with that ex-wife. Sorry, I told you that before."

"Don't worry about it. I'll be back in a bit."

While he—Neil, that's his name, Neil—is at the other end of the bar she people watches in the mirrored wall behind all the bottles. She finishes her second cup of coffee and realizes that her head is a lot clearer. And then, holy shit. No. No. Not possible. _She's_ here? At that cozy table for two which her date must have just left for the men's room or something because she's giving someone a cutesy wave.

Kate had been feeling better, thanks to Neil, but that's gone. She's plunged deeper in the black hole than she'd been when she was weeping over "All the Things You Are" at home on her bed. She steals another glance at the image in the mirror. Gina's dressed to the teeth. Sparkle. Make-up. A gold bracelet so heavy it's a wonder she can lift her arm. "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, you walk into this one?" she asks silently. "Why the hell aren't you in the Hamptons in your little bikini, having a drink by the pool?"

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. If Gina is here, the as-yet-unseen date is Castle. She can't stay here or they'll spot her. Maybe if she just turns a little, has her back completely to them, they won't notice her. If she positions herself so that she can still spy on them in the mirror, she'll be able to tell when they're not looking towards the bar and Neil can help her get the hell out. Through the kitchen, out a window, anything. Oh, God, here comes Castle, leaning over to whisper something in Gina's ear as if he hadn't seen her for days instead of minutes ago. She really can't stand to witness this.

Except it's like a train wreck, her own personal train wreck, and she can't keep her eyes away for long. What the hell? It's not Castle who just sat down! Who is it? Oh, a new writer, that's it. Gina must be buttering up some poor schnook of a writer, getting him to agree to bargain-basement terms on his contract. She's leaning over to him now and—what? She just kissed whoever it is, the not-Castle, in a very, very, very buttery way.

Kate turns around so that there's no way Gina will miss her. She can hold a glare longer than she can hold a grudge, and she has both now. "Look at me, you bitch," she says through teeth clenched so tightly that they hurt. "Come on. Look at me."

It doesn't take long. Two minutes, tops. And when Gina catches sight of her she's so startled that she splashes her Cosmo all over her dress.

TBC

 **A/N** You can hear many terrific renditions of "All the Things You Are" on you tube, including ones by Frank Sinatra and by Ella Fitzgerald. My favorite is by Beverly Sills on _The Tonight Show_ in 1973. Johnny Carson adored her and often invited her to be a guest. Sills was the rare opera singer who could pull off the non-operatic repertoire, and this is a great example.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Good, Kate thinks, I hope the cranberry juice in your stupid drink ruins that thousand-dollar dress you're wearing. Which you probably plan to claim as a tax deduction since you wear it "to work." She turns again so that her back is to the Cosmo-splattered cow, which has two advantages: it allows Gina to think that she's in the clear, and it gives Kate a chance to speak to the bartender.

She nods to him, says "Neil" just loud enough for him to hear, and he comes over.

"More coffee?"

"No, thanks. I sobered up fast thanks to those two cups and the dame behind me. Don't look, don't look."

"The dame behind you?" He swipes an imaginary spot from the bar. "Blonde in the light blue dress? Sitting with a guy in a gray jacket?"

"That's the one."

"What about her?"

"She's the ex."

"Ohhh, that ex? And she's with him. Man, what are the odds of them coming here at the same time as you? Weird they didn't stay at the beach in this heat. I'm sorry, that's tough on you."

"It would be, but that's not him. The guy she's with is not my him. I've never seen him before, but the way she just kissed him? He's definitely no stranger to her."

Neil shows a trace of a smile. "The plot sickens."

"Definitely. So, I was wondering if I could ask you a little favor?"

"Sure."

"Would you mind sort of keeping an eye on me for a minute? I'm going over to the table to say hello, but just in case I'm not as sober as I think, and it looks like I'm about to smack her one, could you call my name? Just to get my attention so I can rein it back in."

"Just to say hello? Uh, huh. But sure, my pleasure. You'll have to tell me your name, though."

"Right. Of course. It's Kate." She picks up her bag and slides off the seat. "Wish me luck."

"You got it, Kate."

Before she turns around completely, she arranges her face into one of pleasant passivity, and takes a deep breath. Luckily, Gina's eyes are locked on Mystery Man, so she doesn't see the detective until she's standing a foot away.

"Why, Gina, what a surprise. I'd have thought you'd be out at the beach." Before the publisher can react, Kate extends her hand to the man. "Hello, I'm Kate Beckett."

He almost leaps from his chair, and pumps her hand. "Steve Harriman. No introduction necessary from you! You're the model for Nikki Heat, aren't you? In Richard Castle's book. He's Gina's ex, as I'm sure you know. Of course you do, you and he work together. More than just work I've heard." He winks when he says it, actually winks at her.

"Really? Where did you hear that?" She turns to Gina again. "And speaking of hearing things, a little bird told me that you have a fantastic weekend place in the Hamptons this summer. I'm surprised that you didn't invite Steve—I'm sorry, it is Steve, yes?—to stay out there with you. It's so hot here. Insufferably hot, don't you think?"

Having no intention of letting Gina answer, or speak at all, she immediately redirects herself to Steve. "Please, sit down." She smoothes the skirt of her dress, which needs no smoothing. "Don't stand on my account."

"Why don't you join us, Kate? Are you here with Rick?"

"No, no, I'm on my own. You and Gina and I can be a threesome." For good measure, she winks at him.

"Let me ask a waiter to bring another chair."

"That's so sweet, thank you."

One is passing by just then, so Steve snags him and makes the request. "This," Kate adds, and waits a few beats, "this lady has spilled something on her beautiful dress. Could you bring her some club soda, please? I'd hate to see it set in and leave a stain." Which it probably already has, she says silently and happily to herself as she sits down.

"So, Gina and Steve," she smiles brightly. "What brings you back to town when it's a thousand degrees? Is there some problem with the beach house? I have a friend who's had a terrible—" she lowers her voice dramatically—"infestation this summer."

Gina's skin is now several shades paler than her artificially pale hair, and as she picks up what remains of her drink with an unsteady hand, Steve answers cheerfully. "Oh, poor Gina has an awful housemate. She didn't pounce early enough in the summer rental frenzy, and she has to put up with this guy until Labor Day, don't you, darling? Even though the house is huge, she convinced me that I'd go insane spending even half an hour with him—says he's a boor and a bore—so I persuaded her to come into town for the weekend. A little staycation, but in a suite in the new boutique hotel on Gansevoort Street, rather than my apartment. Right around the corner from here."

"What a lovely idea," Kate says, before transferring her beam to Darling. "Castle told me that you always disliked the Meatpacking District, Gina. But of course this neighborhood has changed a lot in the last couple of years, hasn't it?" She taps Steve lightly on the wrist. "Is Steve here one of your discoveries? New stallion in the Black Pawn stable?"

"Oh, God, no," Steve says. I haven't the imagination to be a writer."

No shit, Kate doesn't say. "How did you two lovebirds meet, then?"

Gina finally manages to get a word in. "At a conference. Strictly business."

"Well, you seem very cozy. Been together long?"

"No, no," Steve gets in ahead of Gina. "Just a month ago she was seated opposite me in a board room. I'm a corporate lawyer, and I was representing the other side in a matter involving Black Pawn. I took one look at her and said, Steve, settle this thing right now because she's the girl for you. We wrapped everything up the next day and then I wrapped her up, didn't I?" He picks up Gina's hand and kisses it.

Kate tries not to gag. "You know, all this talk has me thirsty. I think I left my drink over on the bar when I came to say hi." She begins to get up, confident that the effusive Steve will get it for her.

"Stay here, Kate, I'll go."

"Thank you. The bartender is Neil. He might have cleared my glass away, but if you could remind him, I was just having a Virgin Mary."

"Nothing stronger, Kate?"

"Oh, no. I'm feeling strong enough as it is, thanks."

As soon as Steve is out of earshot, Gina hisses. "What's your game?"

"Game? I have none. It looks like you're playing one, though. A little dangerous, isn't it?"

"Drop it, Kate. You may be a good detective, but this isn't your case."

"I guess you're right. It's been fun snooping around, though. Oh, look, here's your very own personal corporate lawyer. Lucky he's not a bore, like Rick."

"Your tomato juice, Kate," he says, delivering the glass. "Neil is obviously a fan of yours, said it was on the house."

"Such a sweetheart, that guy. Thank you. Now, tell me all about your work, one law-and-orderer to another." She endures ten paralyzing minutes, punctuating his monologue with an occasional crunch of the celery stick that had come with her tomato juice. Then she stands up. "It's getting late, and I have an early start tomorrow. I'm sure you want to get back to your suite, tout de suite. Great spending time with you. Stay cool!" She leaves as fast as her four-inch high sandals will allow her; given her experience in shoes like this, it's very fast.

During the cab ride back to her apartment she tries to keep her mind blank. She'd enjoyed making Gina squirm, but what had it gotten her? That lying bitch is cheating on Castle. What the hell can she do? Call him up and say, "Hi, it's Beckett. Remember me? Gina's in bed with some snore of a lawyer but I'm available." She's not going to tell him about Gina. The thing is, he's bound to find out eventually. It'll probably break his heart, and she'd like to be the one who puts it back together, but how will she get the chance to do that?

As soon as she's home she gets undressed and runs a deep, cool bath. She slides down until she's completely submerged and doesn't come back up until she needs air. "Help." She slaps the water with her palms. "Help. Help. Help. Somebody help me." Oh, the Beatles. Her go-to guys for mood elevation. They may have broken up almost a decade before she was born, but they're in her blood. The year after her mother died their CD "1" had come out and she must have played it a thousand times, all the Beatles' No. 1 hits. It had gotten her through a lot of bad days and worse nights. This is a pretty bad night. She gets out of the tub; dries off; gets into an oversized, thin cotton tee shirt—the coolest thing she owns—puts on the CD, and hits track ten. She doesn't have to check; she knows what every track is. She's singing along as loud as she can:

 _Help me if you can, I'm feeling down,_  
 _And I do appreciate you being round._  
 _Help me get my feet back on the ground_  
 _Won't you please, please help me?_

She drops onto the couch. Who can she ask for help? Who in God's name can help her? She's pondering these questions when an enormous roar of thunder makes her gasp. It's followed, just seconds later, by lightning. The flash illuminates both the room and her brain; she suddenly knows exactly who might help. She only wishes that she could tell Castle that her inspiration had come quite literally in the form of a thunder bolt. She grabs her phone and scrolls through her contact list. Thank you, Lord, there it is. There she is, complete with her cell number.

She can text her. It's one-thirty in the morning, but so what? That's the beauty of texting: you can do it anytime without disturbing a person. If her textee is asleep, she'll read it in the morning. Time enough. She begins to type.

"I'm so sorry to bother you, and I may be the last person on earth you thought you'd hear from, but I really need your help. I screwed things up so badly with Castle, and I want to fix them. If you can see it in your heart to call me, I'd really appreciate it. Kate."

She opens the window to let in the gusts of wet, cooling air, and gets into bed. She might even be able to sleep since the heat seems to have broken, but before she can get comfortable, her phone rings.

"Katherine? Are you all right? It's Martha, darling. I got your text."

TBC

 **A/N** There really is a section of Manhattan called the Meatpacking District and Gansevoort Street is part of it. Formerly home to slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants, it's now very chic.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer** : The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

"Martha? I can't believe you called."

"There's a chuckle—exactly like Castle's, but an octave higher—from the other end. "Well, you did ask."

"I know, I know," Kate says, sitting up in bed and leaning against the headboard, in case this takes a while. "I just figured if you did it would be in the daytime."

"I'm an actor, sweetheart, which automatically makes me a night owl. Now what's going on? Tell me everything."

Kate swallows hard, wishing that she'd thought out what she was going to say. "Um, would it be all right with you if we did this in person? I'm off tomorrow if you're in town? We could have coffee." What is she thinking? This is Martha. "Or a drink. I'd love to buy you a drink."

"That's tricky, I'm afraid. I'm in East Haddam, Connecticut, doing summer stock at the Goodspeed. Simply marvelous place. Right on the river."

Sliding down the headboard while her spirits plummet, Kate tries to keep the disappointment out of her voice. "Oh. Well, nothing wrong with talking on the phone. And it's, uh, it's great that you're in a play."

"Musical, actually. _My Fair Lady_. A small part, but it's a gem. I play Henry Higgins's mother, who is of course much, much older than I am so I wear a white wig. But she's very classy and funny and she can really put her son in his place when he needs it. I feel as though it's Richard and me, twenty years from now."

"Sounds like fun, Martha."

There's no response, and Kate's beginning to wonder if Martha has lost cell service when she hears her voice again. "It is. And if you don't mind my saying so, it sounds as if you could use a little fun yourself. Listen, I have an idea. Would you like to come up tomorrow—I guess it's today, already Sunday, isn't it? The drive's only two and a half hours. We have a matinee at two and then I'm free since there's no evening show. We could meet afterwards, maybe even have an early dinner so you could get back to the city at a reasonable hour. What do you say? C'mon!"

Martha's right: she could use some fun. Time is lying heavily on her and it would do her good to get out of town. More important, she really, really wants to enlist her aid, or at least get some advice, which she knows is in endless and enthusiastic supply. "I'll do it. Thank you, Martha, this is so sweet of you."

"Nonsense, Katherine. Now, take some unsolicited motherly advice and go to bed. You should leave by ten-thirty. Do you need directions? Oh, no, of course you don't, you have that whatever it is on your computer. Maps, I don't know. Richard raves about it. Anyway, drive safely. I'll leave a ticket for you at the box office."

Kate almost wishes they were Skyping so that Martha could see her smile. "I can't thank you enough, really. You're a lifesaver."

"I don't know about that, but I look forward to our little tête-à-tête. I have a feeling there's a hell of a story coming. Good night!"

"Night."

To her astonishment, she sleeps uninterrupted until nine, which is almost unheard of for her. There's just enough time to shower, wash her hair, get dressed, and wolf down some breakfast before she has to hit the road. On the drive east she goes over what she wants to say, and also wishes that she'd thought to bring something to her benefactor. She's on the interstate; what can she possibly get, a Cinnabon? A key chain that says MARTHA? When she turns on to a two-lane blacktop a few miles from the theater, she finds her inspiration: a farm stand. She pulls over and there it is, just the thing: a little box of four perfect peaches. Because Martha really is a peach, and that's what she needs right now. Someone who's a peach.

Five hours later, the two of them are drinking wine, sitting on a shaded terrace that overlooks the Connecticut River. The heat wave is now only a memory, thank God, and the show had been the perfect remedy for Kate's funk, driving everything else out of her over-crowded, over-thinking brain. "You were so right, Martha," she says, lifting her glass to the actress. "This was—is—so much fun. Here's to you and Mrs. Higgins; you're both sensational. And thank you so much for inviting me backstage afterwards, too. It was like seeing a beautiful bird in its native habitat."

Martha touches her glass to Kate's. "Thank you. What a lovely thing to say."

"This was one of my mom's favorite shows. I hadn't thought of it in ages, but she told me that when the movie came out she saw it seven times in two weeks. She was a teenager and totally idolized Audrey Hepburn. And she was outraged that her singing was dubbed." She stares at the flow of the river for a bit before she continues. "I remember the night we watched _Charade_ on TV when I was a teenager and I realized that her cheekbones were every bit as good as Hepburn's."

"Yours aren't too shabby either, Katherine."

She feels herself blush, not sure if it's a reaction to the compliment or to the wine. "Thanks."

"All right, now that the social niceties are out of the way, tell me what happened. But there's one thing first."

"What's that?"

"I'm not going to judge you, all right? So if you're holding back anything because you're worried about that, don't."

It takes Kate no time to assess the situation. She's going to spill everything to Martha; there's no one else she can do it to—certainly not Lanie—and for whatever tangle of reasons, she trusts her. "Okay, I won't." By the time she tells the story of the Memorial Day weekend invitation, of her dumping Demming, of Castle not knowing and going off with Gina, they've polished off the bottle of wine and Martha has ordered another. Unlike her son, she lets Kate talk, interrupting only occasionally to ask a small question.

"Richard wouldn't tell me, but I knew that something had happened, because a week before that he'd been avoiding Gina as if she were toxic waste—which, in my opinion she is—and then la, dee, dah, they're swanning off to the Hamptons for the summer. If I'd been there I'd have grilled him like a steak, but I've been up here the whole time and spoken to him only briefly by phone."

Kate needs a moment to process this, and then blurts, "Toxic waste?"

"You said it, sister. That woman is poison and always has been. I wasn't around all that much during what might laughably be called their marriage, because that was before I moved into the loft, but he had some insane idea of giving Alexis a stable family life with a real mother figure. Which Gina may have been, on occasion, or in comparison with Meredith, but that's no stretch. I can't imagine why he got back together with her. It can't be for the sex. Not from what I've seen in the past."

Martha shudders slightly, takes a sip of wine and looks intently at Kate, as if she's waiting for her to say something. But Kate is so stunned that all she can come up with is, "Oh."

"Richard has told me innumerable times how brilliant you are at reading people, so that when you interrogate them you can, as he once put it, 'tear them apart as if she were getting meat from a lobster claw.' Now, if I do say so myself, I'm pretty good at reading people, too, which has served me well in my career. And I'd bet my white wig that something happened yesterday that made you text me, hmm? What was it? You didn't hear from him, did you?"

Now comes the really hard part, so she takes some more wine, too. Needs the courage. "No, I didn't. I was moping around about Castle and my air conditioning was broken and I finally said the hell with it, go out and have a drink. Cheer yourself up."

"Did it work?"

"Well, in a way. But, oh God. Okay, I was in a nice, quiet place over by the Highline, telling the bartender—the very married bartender—about my broken heart when I looked up at the mirror over the bar, and there she was."

Martha is stunned. "She? You mean Gina?"

"Yup."

"And?"

"And not Castle."

"And by that you mean, I take it, that she was not alone, without my son, but with someone who's _not_ my son?"

"Bingo."

"Did they appear to be—" she breaks off and rotates her hand, "involved?"

"Well, since her tongue was halfway down his throat, I'd say so, yes." Oh, my God, she's had one glass too many. "I'm sorry, you didn't need to know that."

"On the contrary, I did. Don't worry about shocking me, dear. Did she see you?"

"Oh, yes. And heard me."

"Oh, I can't wait for this," she says, clapping her hands. "That woman is smart and devious but she could never outwit you."

Kate grins. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"It was meant as one. Please, go on."

So Kate unloads that too, complete with gestures and facial expressions. She remembers virtually every word.

Martha laughs so hard that she has to dab at her mascara with a cocktail napkin. "You know, if you ever decide to leave police work, you'd do admirably on stage. In improv, too. May I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"When you first saw Gina with Steve, did you think she was cheating on my son, or did you think the romance—and I use the term loosely—had ended? That they had broken up."

"That's going to take a bit. Do you mind if we order something to eat?"

"Excellent suggestion."

While they wait for their pasta and salad, Martha keeps the mood light with favorite stories from summer stock. "The best was when I played Anna in _The King and I_ on the Cape. Richard was longing to be one of the King's countless children, and I tried to explain to him that Asian children do not have blue eyes. And he said, 'I'll wear sunglasses and no one will know!' In the end the director gave in and let him do it, but he was always in the back so he was the least visible. He loved his little costume, and since he has perfect pitch—"

"Castle has perfect pitch? I had no idea. So do I."

Martha puts her glass down and looks directly into Kate's eyes. "Yet another reason why you were meant for each other. As I've said from day one, you two would make beautiful music together if you didn't let so many things get in the way."

Kate is embarrassed, and it shows, as she looks down to her lap. "Yeah, well."

"I hope you know," Martha says softly, "that I'm your number one cheerleader. For you and Richard. I imagine you do know, and that's perhaps why you texted me in the middle of the night. We'll get back to that." She has another sip of wine, and returns to her story. "As I was saying, since Richard has perfect pitch he was very helpful in keeping all the other kids on key."

The server has arrived with their food, and Kate waits for him to leave before she asks Martha a question. "It's funny that he never told me, isn't it? I mean, he has been known to brag about various other talents. Doesn't like to keep them secret."

"It's the kind of thing a boy can get teased about in school, and it happened to him. It took away the joy he'd had in singing, and I always regretted it. Because we moved around so much he went to a lot of different schools, and he'd do just about anything to fit in. That meant no singing, really, because it wasn't cool. Certainly not then, unless you had a rock band, which God knows requires almost no musicianship."

It's a good reminder for Kate, that Castle's childhood, while colorful, was not an easy one. He's erected all kinds of barriers; he just disguises them well. She spears a piece of ravioli. "This is delicious. I'm glad we came here."

"I'm glad we did, too, for a lot of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the cuisine. I sense you're a little reluctant about answering my question, about what you thought when your first spotted Gina and the tedious lawyer."

Kate grimaces. "It's because I'm embarrassed. Because it reveals so very unappealing aspects of my character."

Martha raises an eyebrow, and says no more.

"I was sure she was cheating on him because I was so wildly jealous. I wanted to think the absolute worst of her because she had what I wanted. And how could she do that? If they'd broken up, no matter whose choice it was, it meant that Castle was available but hadn't called me and that broke my heart."

"But darling," Martha says, covering Kate's hand. "He thought you were with someone else. And if you ask me, that broke his heart."

"Really?" Kate is suddenly fighting back tears, and wondering how it is that she can confess everything to Martha but not to her son.

"You must know that."

"I guess. I mean Espo said, right before, that Castle hadn't been following me around for research for ages. It was the push I needed to to break up with Demming. And then everything went wrong."

"Look, it's been clear to me forever that Richard loves you as he's loved no other woman. When you stayed in the loft a few months ago, after your apartment was bombed, it was even more obvious. You should have seen his face, the guilt he had because some lunatic was using the Nikki Heat books to kill people. I told him that that was as crazy as the killer himself, but it tortured him. I watched him watching you, you know. He's mad about you."

"Still, I was so jealous that I would rather have seen his girlfriend cheat on him because that made _me_ feel better? That doesn't say much about me. Or it does, and it's all bad."

"There's nothing so terrible about the green-eyed monster if you don't let it consume you. My Lord, you should have seen Richard fuming over that detective beau of yours. He was as bad as a sixteen-year-old."

That makes Kate smile. "Yeah, I did notice a spike in testosterone levels when the three of us were working that case together."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"Do?"

"Yes, do. Are you going to tell Richard about Gina? Or have someone else do it? The fact is, infidelity is a deal breaker for him. Richard has many faults, but that is not one of them. When he commits, he commits."

"When he finds out, he'll be shattered. But I feel like I'm in high school, tattling. Especially since I'm, you know."

"You want him."

Kate looks at Martha the way the older woman had looked at her earlier, right into her eyes. " I do. I want him." And then she puts her head in her hands. "I don't know how to do it. It's gonna take a miracle."

"You know that song?"

"What?"

"That song! 'It's Gonna Take a Miracle'."

"Are you kidding? Yes! Bette Midler and Manhattan Transfer! You know that song, too?"

"Oh, honey, I knew it way before they did it. The Royalettes sang it. I was a big R and B fan as a teenager. And then Laura Nyro did a very different take on it when Richard was a toddler. I was still pretty unsure of myself as a single mother, used to sing it to him to put him to sleep."

And then, without any discussion at all, they start singing at the table, their pasta half finished and the sky shot with the colors of a summer sunset.

 _It's gonna take a miracle_  
 _Yes, it's gonna take a miracle_  
 _To make me love someone new_  
 _Cause I'm crazy for you_

"You'll figure this out, Katherine."

"Can you help?"

"Damn right."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you everyone. And to the Guest reviewer who asked: Yes, there is a Beatles CD called _1_. Issued in 2000, it's a compilation of their 27 number-one songs, from "Love Me Do" to "The Long and Winding Road."


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** Though this story is set in 2010, the song for this chapter, "Love Can Go to Hell," is from 2015. I'm just going to claim artistic license here.

It's his dream house, but he hasn't been doing much dreaming in it lately. The weather had turned gorgeous overnight, so he should have had a fantastic brunch on the terrace, taken a walk on the beach. He should be outside now, enjoying the perfect sunset, reading or writing or going for a swim. Instead, he, Richard Castle, best-selling author extraordinaire, is a slug. He's all alone, walled up in his Hamptons castle. It really is a castle, he thinks, looking morosely around the kitchen. The only thing missing is a moat, and the pool isn't a bad substitute. He feels cut off from everyone. Because that's the other thing that's missing: people.

He's eating dinner—dinner being a large package of Oreos and a beer—standing by the sink. No point in setting a table for one. His daughter is at Princeton, in a summer program for high school students. His mother's in a musical in Connecticut. Gina, who has been here with him on and off since Memorial Day, is very much off at the moment. She's been spending Mondays through Fridays working in the city, but weekends out here. Except this one, where she had some stupid business thing about which she was somewhat vague, and had stayed in town. He's been on his own for more than a week and he's not happy about it.

He's working hard at this thing with Gina, he really is, but he's not convinced that she's doing the same. She doesn't seem as invested as he, or as invested as he's attempting to be, but maybe it's just her natural coolness. He used to put stock in the absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder adage, but he's less sure of it now. Gina's been away for nine days, so his thoughts of her should be warmer, not more distant. The absence that's making his heart clench is Beckett's. He missing not just Beckett, but life at the Twelfth. The camaraderie and the teasing and the bad food and the horrible chair that pokes him in the butt and the unreliable elevator and the difficult cases that make his brain hum.

He wants that back, and he'll have it, after Labor Day. Except he won't. Things won't be the same. He has to acknowledge that what he'd been longing for all this time isn't going to happen. Beckett chose Demming, not him. That puts an end to the bantering, which had been escalating nicely before that asshole from robbery had come along. It puts an end to his cherished notion that bantering would inevitably lead to—. He can't bear to finish the thought. But the fact is, without the bantering, a lot of the fun will go out of their work, and all of the hope. At least, in his mind. The hope and the promise. That fantastic promise that he felt of things to come with him and Beckett. Now there's nothing to come. As he sweeps a few cookie crumbs off the counter, he suddenly remembers something that his mother had said to him a couple of months ago. "In life, you just have to accept the fact that not everything is going to go your way." She'd been talking about her career, but he needs to apply those words to himself. He's a lucky man, and he should rejoice in that, but he's not feeling at all joyful at the moment.

After all those Oreos, he's craving something savory. Fritos strike him as a good idea, and another beer, so he takes four steps left to the fridge, and one step right to the snack cabinet, and he's set. He's several chips into the bag when his phone rings with the opening bars of "Mama Said." Huh, quite the coincidence. He usually loves coincidences, but maybe not this time. Still.

"Hello, Mother, I was just thinking about you."

"You were? Pleasant thoughts I hope, dear."

"Just that on occasion you do give excellent advice."

"I won't ask what it was, I'll just treasure your acknowledgement."

"To what do I owe the honor of your call, at ten o'clock on a summer night? It's your evening off. Shouldn't you be bar hopping in East Haddam? Do they even have bars there?"

"Of course they do. But I decided to cast a wider net tonight. I love the bucolic life, but I do miss the energy of the city. And since it cooled off so nicely, I came down after the matinee and I'm spending a couple of nights at the loft. Take the train back Tuesday morning. Anyway, being back here of course made me think of you, and we've not spoken in a bit so I wanted to catch up."

"Not much to catch up on."

"Really? I'd have thought that Gina was busy re-feathering your nest. She does love to shop."

"Nope, no feathering going on."

"Well, did you two have a nice weekend? Do something fun?"

Nice? Fun? No. "She wasn't here."

"She wasn't? Why on earth not? It's the ideal time to be in the Hamptons." She emits a slight but dramatic gasp. "Don't tell me you've broken up?"

"No, she just had business stuff to do this weekend so she didn't come out." He helps himself to another handful of Fritos. He's waiting for his mother to say something, but she's silent. He has a swig of beer and four more chips. "Mother?"

"Look, darling, I don't like to interfere, but—"

"Are you serious? You have a trophy in interfering. A citation from the mayor. I distinctly recall him establishing Martha Rodgers Interfering Day."

"Fine, let's just say I'm exercising my maternal prerogative. It's just—I'll just go ahead. I was meeting an old pal for a drink at seven in the bar at that swanky new hotel on Gansevoort. I've been dying to check it out and I hadn't talked with her in ages. Anyway, I was waiting for her, and who should I see but Gina."

"So?" He contemplates another Frito.

"So, she was not alone."

"I repeat, So?"

"I won't sugarcoat this, Richard. She was with another man, and there was nothing businesslike about it. They were getting out of the hotel elevator, obviously staying there, and they were holding hands. She was glued to him."

He feels as if the chips, the cookies, and the beer are about to vacate his stomach and land in the sink. He closes his eyes and tries to tamp down the feeling. "You never liked Gina."

"That's true, and I should be sorry, but I'm not. I really hate telling you this, but better it should come from me."

This time the silence on the line is his. After a while he chokes out, "Did she see you?"

"She wouldn't have noticed me if I'd been standing there in a pink sequined bikini, honey. Her eyes were completely on him."

Now he's gripping the edge of the counter so hard that his fingers hurt. "Did you recognize him? The guy?"

"No. He was age-appropriate at least. Conservatively dressed."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" he asks, making no attempt to cover up the bitterness in his voice. "That she's not a cougar, just your average cheat?"

"No, of course not. I just wanted you to know, Richard, before you got in any deeper. I truly am sorry. Sorry that you have to take this from her."

"That's just it, Mother. I don't have to take it. And I won't. I appreciate your letting me know. Now please excuse me while I hang up and figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do with my life."

"I'm a call away, darling, if I can do anything. All right?"

"All right. Night."

He has no idea how long he's been standing there. Why had his mother waited three hours to tell him? Why not call right away and gloat? Because, he admits, this is not something she'd ever gloat about. And she'd taken the trouble to ask if he and Gina had broken up before she'd told him the story. Because no matter what their history, she loves him with the same ferocity that he loves Alexis, and never wants to see him hurt.

Now what? He thinks hard about getting into his car, roaring into the city, turning up at Gina's—unless she's still staying in the hotel with Mr. Age Appropriate—and confronting her. But what if she's not at home? Or worse, what if she is and he's there with her? She's not scheduled to come back to the country until Friday night, five days from now, and he's damned if he's waiting until then. No, he's going to sit down, have a good, stiff drink, and call her. Calmly. A far better plan.

In the end he waits until well after midnight to phone. He'll be happy if he either a) wakes her from a sound sleep or b) interrupts her while she's having sex with his replacement. In either case, she's not going to come up with an excuse. There is no excuse for what she's doing, not in his life.

"Rick?"

It sounds like a). "You remember me?"

"What?"

"There's some peculiar kind of comfort in knowing that you remember me. Though of course you could just be reading my name on the screen of your phone."

"Are you drunk?"

"I've been drinking, but I'm a long way from drunk."

"Is something wrong?"

"Why don't you ask him? Maybe he could explain it to you."

"Who? What are you talking about?"

"Well, if you're still at the Ganse-whore Hotel, I assume you're in bed with whoever your weekend companion is. Or maybe you're home alone now." He hears a hiss that makes him visualize a viper on the other end of the line.

"That bitch."

"Unless you're speaking of yourself in the third person, I assume you mean my mother. And you have one hell of a nerve. I guess I should be grateful that you're not denying it. My mother saw you in the hotel and at least she had the grace to ask me if we were no longer together before she let me know. You don't have to tell me his name, because I don't really give a shit, but you could at least tell me how long this has been going on. He a writer?"

The hiss has mutated to a long sigh.

"No, Rick, he's not a writer." There's a faint rustle, as if she's turned over in bed, or thrown off the covers. "He's a lawyer. I met him on a case through work a few weeks ago. I—"

"Stop. Stop it. Just stop. No more. I don't want to hear any more. If you'd wanted out, you should have told me. I have my faults—Christ knows you've enumerated them for me enough times—but infidelity isn't one of them. You've always known that's a deal breaker for me. So this is it. I'd wish you two well, but then I'd be a fucking liar, which would put you and me in the same boat. And I'm gone." His hand shaking, he turns off his phone, in case she's idiotic enough to call back.

She'd thrown him over for some corporate lawyer? Some stuffed shirt?

He's breathing hard, sitting in this armchair, but that's all. The weird thing is that he's not even angry. Well, he is, but he's not in a rage. His pride has taken a horrible hit. But what he is, most, is disgusted with himself. Disgusted that he'd settled for Gina, that he'd taken up with her again. It was a stupid, hormone-fueled reflexive action to Beckett's being with Demming.

The ice in his drink has melted, and there's a watery puddle in the bottom of the glass. He picks it up and rolls the diluted Scotch around in his mouth before swallowing it. "This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper," he quotes aloud. "A bang for Gina and her lawyer, I guess. But a whimper for Gina and me." He puts the glass down again. "No. Not even a whimper. It wasn't even worth a Goddamn whimper."

He's wide awake, despite the hour. Very calmly, he walks upstairs to his bedroom, gets Gina's two enormous suitcases from the closet, and packs everything. He clears the bathroom of all her cosmetics and toiletries, which he stores neatly in the case she has for them. Then he carries everything down and puts it by the front door. He'll have it all delivered to her apartment in the morning. Whatever it costs is worth it, to rid this place of her. To get her out of his heart. He stands next to the matched luggage for several minutes, and puts his hand over his chest. His heart is beating fine. Maybe Gina never was in it at all. Trouble is, the person who is is Beckett.

He shakes his head and turns to look out the French doors. Sunrise is still so early, and the sky is lightening. The hell with going to bed. He'll make the strongest coffee ever and go write. At least he can still write Nikki.

A few minutes later, mug in hand, he sits at his desk and turns on his laptop. It's too quiet. He wants music. He wants Beckett music. He has a file, KBPL, Kate Beckett Play List, and clicks on it. He finds the perfect thing about thirty-five items down, Ashley Gearing's "Love Can Go to Hell," that Brandy Clark covered. Beckett sang it, very loudly and very gorgeously, when it was on the radio in the car a few months ago. Probably didn't know he was listening. Except he always listens. And this time, he's going to be the one who sings along.

He opens his current Nikki chapter and sings while he types:

 _Love can go to hell  
_ _In a heart-broken minute.  
_ _That's where I am without you in it._

He's in the middle of a new chapter when he stops. He needs Beckett in his life, even without her love. They've been friends. They can be friends. It's better than the alternative. He's going to bear down, bear down and send her an email.

"Hi, Beckett. Just wanted to check in with you, see how you're doing. It's been a long summer. I miss you and the mice at the Twelfth. Also those rats, Espo and Ryan. And Montgomery. I was thinking of coming back the first week in August, rather than after Labor Day, if you can put up with me annoying you from that ripped-pleather designer chair on the other side of your desk. Hope you're fine. Castle"

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you all, and as always a tip of the hat to the lovely guest reviewers.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Over coffee and homemade raspberry sorbet last night, Martha had laid out her plan, insisting that she be the one to tell Castle about Gina. "I'll take the heat for this, Katherine. There are too many things that could go wrong if you do it. And besides, as you said, you don't want to look like a tattle tale."

"Or jealous. Even though I am."

"Well, if things go as I expect they will, there will be nothing, no one, and no reason for you to be jealous. And when I tell him, I'll have to stretch the truth only a tad."

"What do you mean, exactly, by 'stretch the truth'? I don't want you to feel you have to lie to him."

"Honey, given the lying—not to mention the laying—that Gina's been doing, it's nothing. The truth stretching is only that I'll tell him that I was the one who saw her, and that it was at the hotel this evening. That's all. Not for nothing am I an actress." Martha had cocked her head then, and looked serious for a moment. "You're actually doing me a favor, you know. Getting that harpy out of Richard's personal life will be a wonderful thing." She had reached across the table and patted Kate's hand. "Now, it's almost eight, and you should be on your way."

Kate had driven Martha back to her cottage, then gotten out of the car to give her a hug. "Thank you again. This means everything to me. I could never have done it without you."

"Nor I without you. It's our own little secret mutual admiration society. Drive safely."

"I will. And you'll call me after you talk to him? Let me know how he is? How it went?"

"Of course."

Half an hour after she'd gotten home, a nervous wreck as she'd waited to hear from Castle's mother, her phone rang.

"Martha? How did it go."

"He was upset, but internalizing. I'd say what he was most was bitter. When I said that I was sorry that he had to take this from her, he said he didn't. And at the end he said, 'Please excuse me while I hang up and figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do with my life.' And that really did break my heart."

"Oh, God, what have I done?"

"The right thing, Katherine. We've both done the right thing, even if it doesn't feel like it at the moment."

"What do you think he's going to do?"

"About Gina? Kick her sorry derrière out of his house. And by the way, I think she's had some work done on that derrière of hers."

At that point Kate had started to laugh, and it had taken a while for her to recover enough to reply. "You really know how to break up the tension. Thank you."

"It's too bad Richard won't literally kick her derrière, it might dislodge some of that silicone."

Then they'd both laughed until Kate had said, "I know the next move's up to me. I'll work on it tomorrow. If you hear from him, will you call me? Right away?"

"Of course. Now don't stay up all night fretting. I have confidence in you."

"Hope it's not misguided."

They'd said their goodnights, but Kate hadn't gone to sleep for hours.

Shit. Her alarm. Again. She's late, she's late, she's late. She takes a shower, dresses in half the time and with half the care that she usually takes, and tears off to the precinct.

"Rough weekend, Beckett?" Espo asks as she sets two large paper cups on her desk.

"What makes you say that?"

"The double coffee order, unless one of those is for me, and the fact you've got make-up on only one of your eyes."

"Javi!" Ryan says, glaring at his partner.

Her hands shoot up to her face. Crap, he's right. "Couldn't sleep last night is all. Now forgive me while I go to the ladies room and make myself at least sort of presentable."

While she's there she takes a good look in the mirror. She adds eyeliner and mascara to the unadorned eye, and concealer under both of them, trying to mask the purple circles there. Her hair needs a little attention, too, so she gives it a good brushing and puts it in a bun. "There," she says to her reflection. "You look passable now."

All summer she's been hoping for fresh cases—an appalling thing to have to admit—because they keep her occupied. Today, though, she's praying that they'll be in a homicide-free zone so that she can map out a way to approach Castle. When she gets back to her desk she turns on her computer and begins to go through the email, much of it boring. She's antsy, waiting to hear from Martha, just as she had been last night. But it's not even nine, and she doubts that her co-conspirator gets up at eleven, at the earliest. Still, she leaves her phone on, and on her desk.

When time drags its leaden feet to 12:30, and there's still no text or call from Martha, she stretches and gets up. "Going out for lunch, guys," she says. "I'll be back in forty minutes. Maybe less."

"Yeah, it takes you forty minutes to eat half a burger, Beckett," Esposito says.

"Remind me of that in December. I'll put 'eat faster' on my list of new year's resolutions." She drops her phone in her bag, and takes the stairs down to the lobby.

Castle and his laptop are by the pool. The courier had picked up Gina's bags at nine and they've probably already been delivered to her doorman. It's past noon now; he can have a drink, can't he? It's reasonable. It doesn't make him a lush. People drink at lunchtime constantly. The entire nation of France has wine for lunch. He's going to go inside and get something, as soon as he checks his email again. It's been five hours since he'd emailed her. Nothing. Still nothing. Maybe she's on a case. Maybe she was in some disgusting alley with a rotting corpse at the time he emailed and she hasn't had a chance to check her email. Maybe she read it but can't think of a way to let him down easily. Maybe she's thrown away his chair. Maybe she and Schlemming have eloped.

He needs more than a glass of wine.

In the kitchen, he eats a handful of raspberries as he pours himself a Scotch. Maybe he should have some raspberry schnapps instead. Or raspberry vodka. Nah, he'll stick with what he knows best. "Salut!" he says to himself. His old friend, single malt. Too bad he doesn't have a friend named Walt. Hey, Walt, how about a single malt? He'd rather have one with a friend named Beckett, even without the rhyme. He should have asked her for a drink more often, back when they were pounding the pavement together. Reminds him of that Adele song from a couple of years ago, "Chasing Pavements." Great, great song. He should never have quit singing when he was a kid. He loves to sing. No one's here, he's gonna sing full out, dammit.

 _Should I give up,  
_ _Or should I just keep chasing pavements?  
_ _Even if it leads nowhere,  
_ _Or would it be a waste?_

Why had he sent that stupid email? He finishes his Scotch, and refills the glass. He should go for a swim, unless he's had too much to drink to get in the water when he's on his own? He'll make a sandwich and take it outside. Sitting in the fresh air is supposed to cure all sorts of ills. Let's see if it works on him. He slaps together a PB&J, wraps a paper towel around it, and goes back to his chaise. He could take a nap. Should take a nap. Two bites into his sandwich, he's out. A dab of grape jelly, right in the middle of his chest, glistens in the sun.

She's in the diner, too nervous to eat, but she hasn't had anything except coffee since that sorbet more than sixteen hours ago, so she orders a BLT and scoots into a corner booth at the back. She checks her phone again. No missed calls, no texts. Might as well kill time by checking her emails; she hasn't been online since Saturday evening, before she went to That Bar. There could be great offers for all kinds of enhancements. Enticements. There could be anything. She scrolls, stops, reads, deletes, scrolls. She stops, hard. Holy shit. Castle. She triple checks the time on his email before she clicks it open, holding her breath as if it might exude toxic fumes that would render her unconscious in the middle of this greasy spoon.

It's the opposite of toxic. She reads it over and over, her sandwich frozen halfway between the plate and her mouth, and doesn't even notice as first a bit of tomato slides out, followed by a mayo-slicked lettuce leaf and then half a slice of bacon, all of which land soggily on her lap, leaking through the flimsy paper napkin.

He misses her. He wants to come back. Soon. Way before Labor Day. August, which is only a couple of weeks away. He misses her. She can hardly breathe. She returns the under-filled sandwich to the plate, and makes a call.

"Martha?"

"Hello, Katherine. I'm sure you're anxious about Richard, but I've not heard a peep."

"That's just it. I have." She recites the email, which she has already committed to memory.

"Oh, my. When did you get that?"

"Just now. I mean, he sent it early this morning but I overslept and I didn't check my personal emails until a minute ago when I went out to get something to eat. I'm there now. In the diner."

"Are you going to call him?"

"No, email. I don't trust myself with the phone just yet, you know? I have an idea, though. You'll probably think I'm crazy."

"I'm a big fan of crazy. You want to run it by me?"

Kate feels unaccountably giddy, or maybe very accountably giddy, and smiles the entire time that it takes to tell Martha what she intends to do. They finish their conversation not long after. All that remains, for now, is composing her email to Castle. She wishes she had his felicity as she keeps trying to write a message, and deleting it before she can finish. Finally she sends something relatively short and not at all personal. Personal can wait.

"Hey, Castle. We're fine, but we all miss you. You'd have loved the three-day old corpse we found in a bathtub during the heatwave, especially the exploding hand. Right up your alley. Let us know what day you're returning so we can have a welcome-back doughnut ready. Beckett"

She goes back to the precinct. When it's almost three, and still no one has been murdered in their jurisdiction, Kate knocks on Montgomery's door.

"Hi, Captain, do you have a minute?"

"Way more than a minute, Detective, if it means I can stop reading this latest piece of—" he pushes a piece of paper away from him, and grimaces. "Piece of nonsense from One PP."

"Sir, it's very quiet today."

"I noticed. Ryan and Esposito were shooting baskets with rubber bands, always a tip-off."

"Right. Well, I have quite a lot of time coming to me and I was wondering if I could take a bit now?"

"What, you mean this week?"

"No, no sir. I know we're short-handed around here at this time of year. I meant just a few hours. If I could leave now, before my shift ends? I'll be here tomorrow, usual time. I just just need a bit of—. Just have to take care of something."

"Go, Beckett. Go. You have my blessing."

"Thank you, sir."

Back at her desk, she shuts down her computer and picks up her bag. "Taking a couple of personal hours, guys," she says to Esposito and Ryan. "See you in the morning."

"You going to the dry cleaners, Beckett?" Espo asks.

"What?"

He points at her legs. "Cause it looks like you're wearing your lunch."

"No, I'm going home to take a nice long bath. With my pants on. Saves a lot of money."

She turns and walks to the elevator, rather than the stairs, repressing the urge to sing or break into a dance. Please, God, let this work.

TBC

 **A/N** Thanks to everyone who's reading. And maybe singing along.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Esposito was right: she is wearing her lunch. The BLT stain is a lot like the shape of New Jersey, and almost as big. As soon as she's home she sheds her pants; she'll drop them off at the dry cleaners on her way out.

Pants. Yes, what she needs is _those_ pants. She hasn't worn them in a while, but she knows exactly where they're hanging in the closet, and she pulls them on. Perfect fit, if she does say so. Perfect as in resembling second skin, which is definitely the desired effect. They're really too hot for the summer, but worth it, fingers crossed. She exchanges her blouse for a white tee shirt, and her heels for a pair of flat-heeled boots. There's a small duffel bag on the closet floor; she takes it out, tosses a few things in, adds her wallet and her phone, and looks around. All set.

She'd called her friend Manny from the precinct, so he knows she's on her way. The subway ride to his place in Queens is quick, under the East River and just a few stops past. She hasn't been out here in more than six months, and she realizes how foolish that is. He's standing in front of his place, waiting for her, and folds her in a bear hug so huge that she all but disappears inside his massive, tattooed arms. "Great to see ya, Kate. Been too long."

"Just what I was thinking, Manny. Thanks for getting her ready for me."

"My pleasure. You're lookin' good. Happy. Are ya happy?"

"Yeah. I'm really happy, Manny. Really, really happy. Hope I'll be even happier in a couple of hours."

"Sounds like new-guy talk to me. 'm I right?"

"New old guy. I mean not old, just that I've known him for two years and now things are changing. I hope."

"Your motor racin'?"

"You could say."

He chuckles as he hands her her helmet. She fastens the chin strap, puts her bag on the back of the bike, and gets on. It's a '94 Harley Softail that he's been keeping in perfect condition for her since her rookie days, when she'd been walking a beat in Astoria. He'd gotten in a bit of trouble back then, and she'd given him a break. End of story, beginning of story.

"Ride good, Kate, okay? And this dude? He ever give you any shit, you know who to call. No'm sayin'? Not that I don't think you can take care of yourself."

"Thanks again, Manny. If you're not here when I get back, I'll park in your garage."

"You still got the key, right?"

"Yup." She pats the keyring that's jammed into her pocket. "Never without it. Bye!"

Once she's out of the city and on the slightly less crowded highway, she starts mulling things over. She's tired of being cautious; time to let go a little. Maybe more than a little. Traffic isn't bad, she's gonna sing.

 _Born to be wild,  
_ _Born to be wild._

 _Get your motor runnin',  
_ _Head out on the highway,  
_ _Lookin' for adventure  
_ _And whatever comes our way._

Castle has been asleep for so long that when he wakes he's in full shade. Good thing he'd had the wits to slather on the sunblock, even though he's deeply tanned after so many uninterrupted weeks out here. His mouth feels as if it's home to an ant farm, but he's ravenous. When he glances down at his stomach he finds a partially eaten sandwich there, the edges of the bread curling up. What the hell time is it, anyway? The phone on the table next to him says 5:49. Really? No wonder he's hungry. And what's that on his chest? Some hideous purple thing. Did something bite him while he was asleep? Some death-delivering spider, injecting poison into his system that will eat away at him until he can fight no longer? Oh, God. Oh. Oh. Grape jelly. He swipes it off with his finger tip, which he licks clean.

Is it worth it to sit up and check his email? Ten hours have passed: surely Beckett will have come up with some kind of response? He flips open his laptop, daring himself to look at the screen. It's there. She answered. She answered him at one o'clock. Why had he fallen asleep? He could have been looking at her email for four hours and forty-nine minutes already. Assuming it's good. Or at least not bad. He clicks on it. She missed him! Okay, that's not exactly what she said. Well, it is. She said "we all miss you," and "we" definitely includes her. She's top of the list of we. Technically Montgomery is, but it's his list and he's putting her on top. And he'd missed an exploding hand? Shit, this has been the worst summer ever. Maybe he could go back right now. Well, they're probably off-duty now, but tomorrow? Still, he doesn't want to look overeager. Maybe next Monday? That would be good. It's already late Monday afternoon, so that's really only six and a half days away.

And she's going to give him a doughnut. Not just an everyday one, either: a welcome-back doughnut.

Oh, this is good. This is so much better than he'd ever hoped. This calls for a celebratory dip in the pool. Since neither his mother nor Alexis is here to call him on it, he cannonballs into the water, complete with a war whoop. He does half a dozen laps, then floats on his back for a bit. Another cannonball is in order. He swims to the edge of the pool, pulls himself out, takes a few steps backward, and leaps in. He's shaking water out of his ear when he hears it, the unmistakable vrooom-vroom of a motorcycle. And the vroom sounds as if it's right in front of his house.

He trots around to investigate because he's not having some gangbanger wannabe trashing his gravel driveway, thank you. He skids to a stop, unbelieving. That's no gangbanger, that's—. Jesus. It's her. In skintight leather pants and a tiny tee shirt and biker boots, and she's straddling a Harley. His mouth is open, but he can't make a word come out. Unintelligible sound, yes, but no word.

"Castle?"

Finally he manages a thready "Beckett?" He knows he's staring, but he has no control over what he's saying when she looks like this. Especially in his driveway. Especially when they're the only two people here. She's tucking her helmet under her arm, which pushes her breasts higher and tighter against her shirt. "You're like that drink," he says, without intending to.

"That drink?"

"Sex on the Beach. Only it's Sex on a Motorcycle on the Beach."

"Geez, Castle, I just got here. Isn't that a little forward? Fast forward?" He's in his trunks; nothing else. She's trying not to look at his arms, which are—so help her—bigger than Manny's, and minus the tattoos. His skin is as sleek as a seal's, and it's wet. But if she doesn't look at his arms, she'll be looking at his chest, and that, well, she's already clenching—. She needs to keep her eyes up, above his collarbone. That should help. She can't help wondering if he owns a Speedo, though. Errhhgggh.

"Beckett. I'm uh, I'm sorry. I mean you look great. Totally inappropriate thing to say. Sorry, sorry. Good thing Demming isn't here, he'd challenge me to a duel or something. Right? Swords at fifty paces."

Please, Castle, please, please, please don't say swords. She's getting off the bike and has to close her eyes for a second.

"Or punching bags, maybe."

"Punching bags at fifty paces, kinda hard to do, Castle."

"Right."

"Hey, I got your email. It's great. You know, that you're coming back. Before you were coming back before. Earlier. Now you'll be earlier." Shit, this would be so much easier if he'd put some clothes on. "Wasn't sure if you got mine. My email reply. Since you were swimming. Looks like."

"Right. Oh, I did! Yeah. Right before you got here I saw it. Thank you."

They're both just standing there, at level 1,000 of awkwardness, worse than two adolescents at an eighth-grade dance. Castle is still gawking, and she decides that she'd better make the next move, whatever it is. "Um, would it be all right if we went inside? I've been riding for a while, a couple of hours, I guess? So I'm thirsty. If you have water?"

"Water? Yes, sure. I have water. Lots of it. Different flavors, and bubbles. Not different bubbles, but water with bubbles and water without bubbles. Please. Please, come in."

As they walk through the house, she's the one gawking. "Wow. Amazing place, Castle. I can see why you'd want to stay here all summer rather than at the Twelfth. It's gorgeous."

Not half as gorgeous as you, he thinks, herding her to the kitchen. "Why don't you have a seat and I'll get us some water. What kind would you like?"

"Plain. Plain is good. Just as long as it's cold."

"Definitely cold." Unlike her. He takes two bottles from the fridge. "Would you like a glass?"

"No need, thanks. I'll drink it right from the bottle." She drops her bag and helmet on the floor, and sits down on a stool at the counter; he's standing on the other side. She dips her head, and looks back up. "Listen, Castle."

Oh, God, she's asking him to listen. That's only slightly less horrible than "we have to talk." He leans forward a little for support.

"About Demming."

Dammit, here it comes. She probably rode out here to tell him that they're getting married.

"He won't challenge you to a duel, I promise. There's no dueling going on over me. He and I split up."

Good thing he's leaning on the counter, because it's the only thing that's keeping him from falling onto the floor. He clears his throat. "You did? I'm sorry."

"You are?"

"Yes. No. I mean, that must have been hard."

"Not really. Not half as hard as watching you and Gina leave the precinct."

"Wait, what?"

"I broke up with him that afternoon. I was on my way to tell you when I saw the two of you. Leaving." Her bravery has taken her this far, but now she has to look at her boots. She hears a loud thunk and raises her eyes. The thunk, the series of thunks, is Castle's forehead, repeatedly hitting the granite countertop.

"I don't believe it. I don't fucking believe it."

"And another thing, Castle," she says, resting a hand lightly on the back of his head.

Should he pick his head up off the counter for this? Yes. He stands back up and sees her lean over to get her small duffle bag.

"I brought you something."

"You did?"

"Yeah. If you've digested that other bit of information, I'll give it to you."

"Okay." He expects her to slide whatever it is across the counter to him, but instead she's walking around it, holding something behind her back. She stops just inches away, and produces a powder-sugared doughnut.

"Open wide."

Gladly. He'll gladly open wide whenever she says that. She pops the doughnut partway into his mouth, and he bites down on it. It's clamped between his teeth and suddenly there she is, hovering on the other side of it, so close that a bit of powdered sugar has reached the tip of her nose.

"I know about Gina," she whispers. "That she's toast." And she bites down on the doughnut, her lips pressed hard against his, while two more lines from "Born to be Wild" race through her brain.

 _Fire all of your guns at once  
_ _And explode into space._

TBC

 **A/N** Thanks, everyone. Hope you're having a wild weekend.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

The powdered sugar is going up his nose and it tickles, but he's already voted this the greatest doughnut in history. The pinnacle in the Pantheon of Doughnuts. A doughnut built for two: you start on opposite sides and meet in the sweet, sweet middle. Your lips and your teeth and your tongues, all arriving at once. His and hers, hers and his.

Until he has to sneeze. There's no way he's sneezing when they're like this, when her perfect mouth is on his for the first time, even better—softer, warmer, more sensual—than he'd imagined in the hundreds (yes, hundreds) of dreams he's had about her.

And so he lets go, just lets go of the doughnut and thus of her, and flings himself to one side in what he hopes is the vicinity of the sink. He's trying to cover his nose with one hand while half-blindly reaching for a dishtowel with the other. It works: the cloth, applied to his face just in time, not only muffles his explosive ah- _choo!_ but traps the sugar-dusted mist that his nose expels. He feels as if he's dislocated his neck, but it was worth it.

When he finishes cleaning off his face and washing his hands he turns back to Beckett, who's standing just where she had been, holding the half-eaten doughnut. The instant her eyes meet his, she loses it, laughing so hard that she collapses against the counter. "Bless you," she says, and laughs all over again.

"Way to kill the mood, Beckett," he says primly.

"Oh, you did that all on your own, Castle." She straightens up and takes a bite of the doughnut. "You want the rest of this?"

"Definitely. Especially if you feed it to me."

She walks—stalks, maybe—back to him. "Open wide."

God almighty, she said it again. Twice in three minutes or whatever it's been. He has no concept of time at present. He opens wide, and has just enough neural firing in reserve to be able to capture her wrist. He holds, all at once, her look, her finger, and the doughnut—the last two in his mouth. It's impossible to chew, so he just sucks, hard, and swirls his tongue around and around her finger. When he thinks he might be approaching the choking point on the doughnut, he pulls her hand away without releasing it, and swallows. "Hell of a doughnut," he says.

And then she stuns him by leaning forward and kissing him so erotically, profoundly, completely—a kiss that is simultaneously filthy and sweetly tender—that when she stops he almost passes out.

"I had to get that out of my system," she says, and beams.

His chest is heaving; many parts of him are on high alert. Eventually he regains his power of speech, which had temporarily relocated to an inaccessible part of his brain. "What? Oh. I was really, really hoping that meant that you want me in your system, not out of it."

"I do, Castle," she insists while retreating to her stool, placing a physical and emotional barrier between them. "My whole system, bloodstream, everything. But I need to talk to you first. Just wanted a kiss to remember you by while I do that."

"Won't I be right there?" He looks befuddled. "You can see me. So you don't need to remember me."

She, however, looks very serious. "Oh, but I do." She briefly disappears from view while she picks something up from the floor. The duffle bag again; she drops it to her lap. "I was hoping we could get in the big-deal pool that you told me about for an entire week. I brought a suit."

A suit? He's going to see her in A BATHING SUIT? On the very same day that she swam into view—good one, Rick, he tells himself—in her motorcycle gear? A bathing suit is the only garment that could possibly equal that. Wait, what if hers is one of those long-legged ones that Olympics swimmers wear? That cover up so much skin? She couldn't be that cruel, could she? She's wildly competitive, though. Maybe she wants to race him.

"Castle?"

"Huh?"

"You all right? You look as if you've been hit by a meteor or something."

"No. Fine, I'm fine." Except for the talking part. Why do they have to talk? She's always telling him he talks too much, and now she wants him to talk? When he definitely wants not to? At all. Still, there's the prospect of the bathing suit. That could make up for a lot.

"Is there a place where I could change?"

"Sure. Yes." He's trying not to stare, or fantasize too much. Yes, she could change right here. Here would be the perfect place. She needn't bother with the suit, whatever it is. They could skinny dip. "Uh, the guest room, would that be all right? I can show you to the guest room. Do you need a towel? I can get you a towel Or you could take one from the guest bath. It's attached. The bathroom I mean, not the towel. The towel isn't attached to anything. Except maybe the bar, it's hanging over a bar."

"That sounds fine. But I'm sure you have towels made of unborn organic cotton in there and I can use some old beach towel. You have any of those?"

"Yes. Not old, but beach. I'll get you one."

He walks her upstairs to the guest room—correction, suite, which is practically as big as her apartment. "Thanks. I'll meet you at the pool, okay?"

"You can find it?"

"Yes, Castle, I'm pretty sure I can. There's a compass in my phone if I get lost."

"Okay. See you." See a lot of you, a whole lot of you, please God.

She's got him flustered, and he's so adorable. Like a little boy. And sexy, incredibly, overwhelmingly sexy. The two should be mutually exclusive, but they're not. Not in him. And who's she kidding? She's every bit as flustered as he is; she's just better at covering it up. Years of being a cop have helped her with that. She takes off her boots, then peels off her leather pants—and she's so hot in them that peel is what she has to do—and drapes them over the back of a chair. Next, her tee shirt, bra, and panties, which she folds and places on the seat of the chair. She takes the suit from her bag, holds it up to give it a once over, and puts it on. Is it all right? What does it say, exactly? Does it matter? What matters is what she'll say, exactly.

The edge of the bed is luring her. She's feeling a little unsteady. Unsteady because she's really falling for him. No, fallen. She's already fallen in a way she never has before and never will again. She's trying to calm down before she goes to the pool, prepare herself for what needs to be said. She starts to hum. Humming has always helped her, ever since she was a preschooler on the playground with older, bigger kids who were a little scary. She's so proud of her independence, and she should be. Self-sufficiency is great and admirable; still, it doesn't mean it's terrible to lean on someone. That's a good thing, to let someone in. Let him in. A great thing. Wow. That does it. Humming leads to singing, soft singing.

 _Ready to fly, but before I take  
_ _Another step  
_ _Would you catch me if I fall for you?  
_ _'_ _cause I'm falling,  
_ _I'm falling, I'm falling._

She stops, her hand pressing down wide over her heart. She can let herself go. She can.

 _I'm so used to standing.  
_ _So used to being on my own._

Any minute now she'll be ready. Right? This is right, isn't it?

 _It feels like I'm losing control.  
_ _I'll take another step  
_ _If you catch me when I fall for you._

Time to go. If she knows Castle, and she does, he'll have been conjuring hideous scenes while she's been up here, wondering why she's taken so long. She electrocuted herself when she turned on the bathroom light. She had an allergic to the doughnut, fainted, hit her head and is unconscious. She's changed her mind. She's left.

Nope. None of the above. She's right here. She runs down the stairs, two at a time, and makes her way to the pool, intentionally letting the door slam so he'll know she's on her way. After all, he needs a moment to prepare, too.

He sees her coming down the path. Oh, Botticelli, he thinks; you died too soon. If you'd just hung on another 500 years, 501, you'd have thrown out your painting of Venus and started all over again. Beckett on the half shell. Holy shit. That's no Olympic long-legged asexual suit, it's a microscopic bikini. Very few little spandexes had to gave up their lives for that bathing suit. He'd gladly give up his, if this were the last thing he'd be permitted to see on Earth.

"Hi, Castle."

"That's the smallest suit I've ever seen." Not what he'd had in mind to say to her, but he's sort of out of his mind. Very much out, very, very much.

"Is that a complaint?"

"No. Oh, no no no no."

"Don't you have a smaller bathing suit than that?"

Than what? He doesn't know what he's wearing. It could be chaps and a sheepskin vest, or a tuxedo. Maybe his pajamas. He has no memory of it, so he looks down. Oh, right trunks. With porpoises on them. "Yeah," he says looking up again, "but only to swim laps."

"That's what I'm gonna do. Swim laps, before we talk."

Well, thank God. Maybe he'll come up with something more polysyllabic if they hit the water first. "Want me to do laps?"

"With me? Yes. But I want you to change into a smaller bathing suit first."

"You do?"

"Seems fair, don't you think?"

"Okay. Back in a minute."

But he's not back in a minute. It takes a lot more than a minute, waaaaaaay more than a minute, for him to bring himself under control. He cannot appear in his fire-engine red Speedos with a hard-on like this. He runs through several remedies in his playbook before one works. Fire ants. He shudders. He's good to go in the water now.

When he gets outside Beckett has her back to him. It's getting towards sunset, and she's looking out at the ocean, her long shadow stretching out across the terrace. God, she has a beautiful back. And backside. Better not to look. Better to swim laps. "Hey, Beckett!" he calls from the other side of the pool. "Are we racing, or what?"

She spins around when she hears his voice. Are we racing? Racing? What's racing is her heart. Can he see it? It must be visible even from where he's standing. Her heart is about to explode through her bikini. Not unlike the way he might be exploding out of those Speedos. Sweet Jesus, does he have any idea? Of course he has. All men do. But he wouldn't be bragging, he'd be telling the truth. The God's honest truth. "Oh, yeah, we're racing."

"For what?"

"What?"

"What are we racing for, Beckett? There has to be a prize."

The prize is you, you idiot, she does not say. "I win, I get to drive your Ferrari."

"I win, I get to ride your motorcycle. Sitting behind you. Holding on to you."

"You're on, buster. Ten laps?"

He sniffs. "Baby stuff. Twenty." He points to the diving board. "We'll start at that end."

"Fine," she says, sauntering towards it, then slipping into the water. "And Castle? Be careful jumping in. You might lose that suit."

"Plenty holding it up, Beckett."

That deserves a reaction, but she's afraid of what she'll say or worse, do, so she's quiet, and squeezes her eyes shut. "Ready? On a count of three, go."

They're both fine and powerful swimmers. He's easily in the lead at first, but she has greater endurance, and by lap fifteen she's caught up to him. They're side by side, stroke for stroke. After eighteen she pulls in front; when she makes the turn at nineteen she realizes that she's half a length ahead of him. Shit. She wants him to win. Wants to have him pressing hard and sweaty against her back, his hands locked around her waist, and the motorcycle roaring against her thighs. But if she lets him win now, it'll be obvious. So she swims as fast as she can to the finish.

She's a little out of breath, but he's worse. They're both hanging on to the tiled edge, pressing their foreheads against it. "Great job," he wheezes. "Let me know when you want the car."

"Will do."

"You gonna take a victory lap, Kate?"

He called her Kate. He never calls her Kate. "Not a chance. Besides. I have to talk to you." She inhales as deeply as she can, and finds the courage to look him in the eye. "I really have to talk to you, Rick."

TBC

 **A/N** I took some license with the song in this chapter, too—Leela James's "Fall for You"—since it was released in 2014, but it seemed perfect for the situation. Thank you, mobazan27, for putting me on to it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

"Where are those beach towels, Castle?" Beckett asks, hands braced on the tile edging as she gets ready to hoist herself out of the pool.

"By the chaises to your left." He's still breathing hard, in part because he's just swum 20 fast laps, in larger part because of the five-foot-nine, water-slicked vision in front of him. She's up and out in one swift, fluid motion, not unlike a porpoise, although if porpoises looked like her he'd have had pictures of her on his trunks and would never have swapped them for his Speedo. He watches her walk to the chaise, but then she ruins the view by wrapping herself up in yellow-and-white-striped terrycloth. Time for him to get out, too. At least if she stays covered up with the towel he'll be able to concentrate on what she's saying. Maybe.

If only he'd swum down to the other end of the pool he wouldn't have had to make the long walk back towards her. The long walk in which she's mesmerized by the play of tendons in his calves, the twitching of muscles in his chest, the track of a drop of water as it makes its way down a bicep the size of a cantaloupe. She's transfixed by the tiny, clingy pair of Speedos that are the next best thing to nudity, and the faint but glistening line of hair that begins just below his navel and seems to be pointing, like a neon sign, to his—

"Beckett, are you staring?"

"No." That's a whopper she thinks, mentally strangling on her inadvertent word choice. "I was just taking note of the fact that your bathing suit is smaller than mine."

"Really? You want to measure?"

The amount of material in his Speedos is not the measurement that interests her. "Not necessary, Castle," she says, waving her hand in what she hopes expresses indifference, even if that's another fib. Whopper. "Will you sit down so we can talk, please?"

"Okay." He sighs audibly as he drops onto the chaise next to her.

"I'm not going to torture you, you know. There are just some things I have to get off my chest." She shoots him a warning look.

"Right."

"First I have to ask you a question. Aren't you curious about how I knew that you and Gina broke up?"

That's not what he'd expected, and he's not prepared. "Is _that_ what this is about?"

"Not really, but it's important. Look, you ask more questions than anyone I've ever known, but you didn't bat an eyelash when I told you that."

"In my defense—"

"You didn't do anything wrong, Castle. You don't need to defend yourself."

"In explanation, then. You told me that while you were eating a doughnut out of my mouth. And right after that you kissed me almost unconscious. And right after that you put on that, that, bikini. And right after that we did twenty laps and then I had to watch you get out of the pool like a wet dream. Oh, God. I didn't mean that. I mean you were all wet and you looked like a dream." He winces. "So really I haven't had time, um, to wonder how you knew that. What you told me about, you know, her. Being toast."

"I saw her."

"Who?"

"Gina."

"You saw Gina?"

"Yeah, with a guy. The guy. The one she's, well, with." She'd seen him surprised—shocked, even—on other occasions, but nothing to equal this. So she gives him a sketch of the story, not of what impelled her to go to the bar, but of happening to see Gina and what's his name, Steve, there. And of them kissing.

He doesn't interrupt her, not once, and he's quiet for a long time before he finally speaks. "And you didn't think to call to tell me?" There's some bitterness in the question.

"Never, Castle. I wouldn't do that."

"It's almost unbelievable, your story. Since my mother saw them, too. Did you know that? In their hotel. That seems like too much of a coincidence even to me, the man who loves coincidences. That long arm of coincidence is longer than a orangutan's, don't you think? It's dragging on the ground. And it doesn't answer the question of how you knew that we'd broken up, just that you'd caught her cheating on me. Am I right?"

"You're right, it is unbelievable, but not the way you think. I did see them, late Saturday night, at the bar. Your mother didn't see them anywhere, there or at their hotel."

"That's not what she told me."

This time it's she who takes a while to respond. "I called her after I saw them. When I got home."

He sits up. "You called her?"

"I needed maternal advice, Castle."

"From my mother? There must be at least a million mothers in New York City, and you chose her?"

"Because she's _your_ mother, Castle, and I trust her. And she's not in New York, she's in Connecticut."

"You know where she is?"

"Yes. She invited me to see her show. So I drove up yesterday and went to the matinee, and then we had dinner together. And talked and talked." The air is so changed and so charged that she's afraid to move, and he looks drawn. "Please don't be angry."

"Pretty much used that up on Gina, Beckett. But I don't understand what you did, why my mother claimed that she was the—the evidence finder. Especially since you're the—" He looks away. She can see his Adam's apple when he swallows. "You're the trained detective," he finishes, putting a lot of weight on the last word.

She knows he's angry, and she knows that he's hurt. Things have happened so fast that she's suddenly on the knife-edge of memory: she was in that bar less than 48 hours ago, and Castle learned of his latest betrayal less than 24 hours ago. Yet now she's by his pool, in the near darkness, with him, and he's still pretty much at sea. So she tells him, in condensed form, what she and Martha had talked about and decided to do, and—in extremely abbreviated form—what Martha had told her earlier today after she'd spoken with her son. "And then I came out here. I never would have done that if I hadn't known that you and Gina weren't together any more. Never." She stops to push her hair off her forehead, because now she's getting to the really tough part. Tough for her, anyway. She reaches out and takes his hand. There's a slight movement, as if he might pull away, but he stays.

"I've spent the whole summer missing you, Castle. And the longer you were away, the worse it got. It was a physical ache and a psychological one. It was total emptiness. I kept thinking of you and Gina out here, remaking your life, and the jealousy ate me up. And I beat myself up. I was pretty much at rock bottom on Saturday night, and my air conditioning was broken, so I went to this pretty, quiet bar and was getting nicely drunk all on my own when I saw Gina at a little table. Saw her reflection in the mirror over the bar, which is what saved me. She was waving at someone who was just out of my sight, and of course I thought it was you. I figured what a cosmic joke that was on me. I was about to ask the bartender to sneak me out the back when I saw you in the mirror, come back to the table. Except it wasn't you. It was the other guy."

"The lawyer," Castle interjects. "Whose brains she was fucking out. He shouldn't get used to it. Won't last more than a couple of weeks."

That makes her want to cry and laugh at the same time, but she won't. She tamps that down and plows on. "I really wanted to kill her. Or at the very least smack her senseless. I wanted to ask her what the hell she was doing. How she could do that to you? I wanted to tell her what a bitch she was, and what an idiot, to give you up." She takes a pause and looks hard at him, though there's so little ambient light that he's hard to read. He doesn't look so wounded anymore, at least. He looks, maybe, open?

"If you know the guy's name, I'm assuming that you went over and introduced yourself?"

"Oh, yeah. I was very indirect, though."

"Indirect?"

"You want to know what I said?"

"Damn right I do."

And so for the second time in less than two days she spills virtually everything, just as she had to Martha. She even tells him that Gina referred to him as a bore and a boor. What the hell. She's proud of what she did and what she said, and when she gets to the end of her story, she looks at him again, trying to gauge his reaction.

"Jesus, Beckett."

"I think I put the fear of God in her, Castle."

"Oh, no." His voice is like steel now. "Much worse."

Worse? Is he mad at her? What just went wrong? How has she screwed this up? She manages to croak, "Worse?"

"Oh, yeah. You must have put the fear of Katherine Beckett in her, which is infinitely more terrifying than the fear of God."

"It is?"

"Take it from me."

She can see his smile. No teeth, but definitely a smile. Thank you, Lord. She'd survived part one; the harder climb is just ahead. "But here's the thing, Castle." She can both see and feel him stiffen, as if he's bracing himself for a crash. "The thing is, you weren't missing me all summer. And what I'm terrified of having done is coming out here way too soon. I couldn't wait, you know? I just couldn't. I'm not a total idiot, I know how you're looking at me. And how we flirt."

"We excel at that."

"I know. And that's part of the problem. For me. Because I don't want to be the flirty rebound, you know? If we jump into something now, I get you on the rebound, and it's a terrible way to start anything. It will end in disaster. But at least you know now how I feel and maybe at the end of the summer when you come back—you said you'd come back—"

"I said I'd come back sooner now. Way before Labor Day."

"Well, yeah, okay, but as my partner. My work partner, right? And then after a while if Gina's out of your system and you still—" She had no idea that he could move that fast. He's out of his chaise and grabbing her before she can finish her sentence. And then he kisses her almost unconscious. That's what he'd said she'd done to him, and now he's done it to her.

He has trapped her head in his hands. "Rebound, Kate?" He's whispering into her hair. "Rebound? Are you crazy? You're the one I wanted all along. I was just so stupid when I thought you'd chosen Demming that I bounded back to her." He kisses her again, hard but fast. "Stupidest thing I've ever done. You're the only woman I've wanted for longer than you can imagine. Forever, it seems like."

It's pitch dark, and she gasps. "Oh, my God, Castle. I have to go." Even in the dark she can see he looks stricken.

"Go? You're not staying? Did I, did I scare you off? What? Where are you going?"

"Back to the city. I have to work."

"Work?"

"Yes, work, remember? I know you haven't seen the inside of a police station in a while, but I have to be there."

"Now? You have to be there now?"

"No. At seven. I just got part of this afternoon off. Begged the Captain for a couple of hours. We're short-staffed now. You're not there, a bunch of people are on vacation."

"Stay. Please stay. You can go in the morning."

"I can't, Castle. The rush hour commute from here to Manhattan? I'd have to leave at three a.m."

"Let me drive you home tonight, then."

Time to lighten things up. Time for a little flirtation—it's good to flirt again—before she hits the road. "In your Ferrari? I won the bet, I get to drive."

"Mercedes. The Ferrari's in the city."

"Forget it. I have to take my bike back, anyway. And I love riding it at night."

"Can I come with you? Even though I didn't win the bet and that was my prize? What do you say? Please? "

"You don't have a helmet."

"Don't you have an extra one? In the bag you brought?"

"No."

"What's in that bag of tricks of yours, anyway?"

"Bag of tricks?" She raises both eyebrows. "What, like a whip?"

"Oh, that would be good."

"In your dreams, Castle."

His voice softens again. "You're already in my dreams, Beckett. Every night." He squeezes her hand. "You're serious about goingnhome tonight?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I swore to Montgomery."

"I'm serious, too, about riding with you. I know a guy with a helmet."

"Of course you do. I'd expect nothing less."

"I'm gonna go call him, all right? He's practically right around the corner. Probably has hundreds of helmets. He's a bike nut."

"And I'm gonna get dressed."

They walk back to the house together, holding hands. She's exhausted and exhilarated. She can't remember any time, at any point in her life, when she experienced so many mood changes in such a short time. She decides to shower quickly, wash off the chlorine, before she puts her clothes back on. When she's almost ready—only the pants and the boots remain—she sits on the edge of the bed, just as she had a little while ago. A lifetime ago. Castle dreams about her. He dreams about her every night? She wonders what he dreams, if they're anything like the dreams she has of him. She thinks of the song she sang earlier today in this same room and how different things already are, and she starts to sing again. It's a different song this time, for a different mood.

 _Say nighty-night and kiss me;  
_ _Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me.  
_ _While I'm alone, blue as can be,  
_ _Dream a little dream of me._

She stands up to pull on her leather pants, grateful that the evening is cool, and puts on her boots. She can just hear Castle, moving around downstairs, and she wonders if he got the helmet. The song hasn't left her.

 _Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you–  
_ _Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you.  
_ _But in your dreams, whatever they be,  
_ _Dream a little dream of me._

There's a knock on the door. "Beckett? Kate?"

"Coming, coming." She grabs her bag—which apparently is full of something magic, because she's ecstatically happy and full of hope—and opens the door.

He's standing there, dressed in jeans and a white tee shirt, holding a helmet, and grinning like a kid who just won the MVP trophy at Little League. "I got it!"

All she can think of is her favorite end-of-game baseball expression. "Rounding third, and heading for home." She smiles back at him. "Okay, then. Let's go."

They're barely on the highway, with him pressed up against her back like second skin, when she starts wondering. She's not sure that she can make it all the way home without pulling off into the shrubbery that lines the side of the road, and tearing all his clothes off.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you all for coming along on the ride.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** This chapter will move into M territory. If that's a place you'd rather not visit, you'll be safe if you stop reading after the line, "Let's get these jammies off, Castle."

They've gone 50 miles—not even halfway to Manhattan—when she sees an all-night diner ahead and pulls in.

"Bathroom break?" Castle asks when she cuts the engine.

"No, food."

"Food?"

"Yes. I'm starving. Aren't you?"

"I could eat."

"Right." She snorts. "Could eat."

They take a booth by a window, even though it's getting on for eleven. She barely looks at the plastic covered menu before waving over the waitress. "I'd like the Blue-Ribbon Deluxe Premiere Burger Plate and a cup of coffee, please."

"Geez, Beckett," he says. "That's more food than you usually eat in a week."

"I've worked up quite an appetite," she says, pinning him with a look. "And I'm really going to need my strength in a little while."

The paper wrapper that he'd been about to shoot from his straw flutters to the table.

"And you, sir?" the waitress asks.

"Same," he says, looking at the wrapper as if he has has no idea how it got there. "I'll have the same."

"The only thing I've had in the last twenty-four hours is three bites of a BLT and half a doughnut. I need strength for— riding." Kate unfolds a paper napkin and puts it on her lap. "Especially my thighs. And my back." She smiles. "Have you had any today, Castle? Food, that is."

"Scotch," he blurts.

"Scotch? I assume that was before your half of the doughnut, unless you sneaked a drink to steady your nerves while I was putting on my bathing suit."

"Yeah, before."

"Anything else?"

He attempts to redirect his thinking from her thighs to what he might have eaten today; eventually he remembers. "Um. A couple of raspberries. And part of a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich before I fell asleep by the pool. And the other part of that doughnut."

"No wonder you said you could eat, Castle."

Their identical, artery-defying meals arrive: double-bacon cheeseburgers, curly fries in portions roughly the size of a motorcycle wheel, potato salad, and cole slaw. Their intake, however, is far from identical, since at least half her fries and all of her potato salad end up in his stomach, not hers. While they're eating she tells him about some of the particularly revolting cases he's missed, none of which affects his appetite. "The exploding hand is still the best," he says, dragging yet another fry through the pond of ketchup on his plate. "I can't believe I wasn't there for that." He takes the last bite of his burger and asks hopefully, "I don't suppose there was any video?"

The waitress has reappeared and is refilling their mugs. "Would you like some dessert? It's included with the Blue-Ribbon plate."

"Wouldn't miss it, Wanda," he says. "What's on offer?"

She rattles off a long list, finishing with, "And Boston Cream Pie. Made right here, not in Boston."

"Good, wouldn't want anything from Boston." He points his spoon at Beckett. "She hates the Red Sox."

"Me, too!" Wanda says. "In our house we call 'em the Red Pox."

Her customers laugh, and Castle mentally triples the tip he's going to leave her. "You sold me on the not-Boston Boston Cream Pie. What about you, Beckett?"

"Too full, thanks."

"Could you bring an extra fork, please? I bet she'll want some of that pie."

"Sure thing," the waitress says, raising an eyebrow and simultaneously—though she doesn't know it—elevating her tip again. She's back with the pie (and forks) less than a minute later.

Castle pushes the dessert to the middle of the table. "Dig in."

"Nope, it's yours."

He spears a chunk of pie and chews happily. "It's so weird that they call this pie when it's really cake."

"That's Boston for you," she says. When his third forkful is halfway to his mouth, she reaches across the table, grabs his hand, and takes the fork between her lips. "Mmmmmmm," she moans, and runs her tongue across her bottom lip.

"Thought you'd had enough, Beckett."

"My appetite for creamy things is never sated," she says, deadpan, passing the fork back to him.

"Jesus," he mutters, and runs his hand down his face. "I have to eat this fast."

Five minutes later they're standing by the bike, snapping their helmets in place. "Listen, Castle," she says, as she throws one leg over the seat. "If you think you're gonna get sick from all that food you just chowed down, tap me on the shoulder and I'll pull over. I don't want you barfing on me."

"Cast-iron stomach," he says, slapping his belly. "You have nothing to worry about."

To her astonishment, he was right. When they get off the highway in Queens, though, she pulls into a gas station. "I'm gonna text my friend. He lives about ten blocks away. I want to let him know that I'm leaving the bike in his garage."

"Why are you doing that?"

"I park it there, Castle. Can't afford to keep it in Manhattan."

"I can."

"You're not paying for my parking."

"I'm not. You can put your bike in the space where my Mercedes usually is."

"I'll have to take it back eventually."

"Fine. Eventually doesn't have to be now. C'mon, if you park it in Queens we have to find a cab and no one will one want to take us into Manhattan at one in the morning."

"Okay, okay. I'll just let Manny know so he doesn't worry."

Castle immediately looks anxious. "Wait, he worries about you? Is he someone I have to worry about?"

"You should see him. He's ripped. Covered in tats. He adores me."

"Oh, shit."

"He loves me like a sister, Castle. He's gay."

She sends a quick text to Manny and has only just put the phone back in her pocket when it pings. She takes it out, chuckles, and replies. There's another ping, a bigger chuckle, and another reply.

"What's this, the Manny and Kate Comedy Hour?" Castle asks, clearly jealous.

"No, he's just a sweetheart. You really want to read these?"

"Yes."

"Maybe if you stop whining I'll let you."

"Not whining."

"Castle!"

"All right. See? I'm my usual jocund self. May I read them now?"

"Jocund? Man, you're working hard for this." She passes him the phone.

"Hi, Manny. Not going to leave the bike after all. I'll probably be by in a couple of days. Will call. Thanks. Smooches."

"You with the new old guy? Things must be working out, hot stuff."

"Yeah, I am. Hope so."

"Remember what I said, Kate. Any shit from him and I'll stomp him with my stilettos."

"Thanks. Love you."

Castle looks at the screen for far longer than it takes to read five short texts. "Stilettos, huh?"

"Yup. Red patent. Size fourteen. He's got incredible legs."

He consults the small screen again before looking back up at her. "Um, so, 'new old guy.' Is that...?"

"You? Yes."

"I might have to ask you about that later."

"Okay. Now give me my phone, please."

He slips it into her back pocket and lets his palm linger for a moment before he gets on the Harley. All the way home to Broome Street he holds on to her waist as tightly as he can, and lets go only because he has to when they reach the garage and have to dismount. With his helmet hanging from his hand by the strap he asks almost shyly, "Would you like to come up? Will you come up, Kate?"

With her own helmet against her hip, she smiles and nods. They take the elevator from the garage; neither says a word, but he hooks her little finger with his, and they walk into the loft that way. She looks around the space that she'd become familiar with in March, when she stayed there after her apartment blew up. "It's so quiet."

"No teenaged daughter, no melodramatic mother."

"Not a word of criticism about Martha, Castle. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for her."

"You wouldn't, huh?" He's backing her against the sofa.

"No."

"Let's not talk about my mother."

"Good plan." She knows he's about to kiss her, but she takes his hand and gives it a tug. "Come with me."

"Where are we going?"

"Upstairs."

He's surprised. "Upstairs? Why?"

"I stayed there for a while during the winter, remember?" She pulls him towards the open staircase.

"No way I could forget that."

"You know what I secretly hoped, every night?"

"No," he answers, from the sixth step.

"That you'd knock and I'd say, 'Come in,' and you'd open the door and stop there and tell me, 'I just wanted to say goodnight.' And I'd say, 'I can't quite hear you from over here.' So you'd walk closer and say it again, and I'd ask, 'Don't I get a goodnight kiss'?"

They've reached the guest-room doorway. "And what would I do?"

She turns and puts her arms around him. "You'd kiss me, like this." She is very gentle as she begins to kiss him, and moves her hands from his back to his shoulders and then to the sides of his face. "Close your eyes," she whispers, and when he does, she kisses each eyelid. "Night."

His eyes pop open. "Night?" He sounds both horrified and heart-broken.

"That's just what I was hoping for then. That you'd kiss my eyes close and say goodnight."

"That was all?" He still sounds horrified and heart-broken.

"Your daughter was right down the hall, Castle."

"Okay." He looks longingly at her. "But I don't want to say goodnight."

They're standing next to the bed, and the backs of her legs are pressed against it. "I don't want you to, either," she says, before grabbing the hem of his tee shirt, pulling it over his head, and dropping it onto the floor. "Let's get these jammies off, Castle."

"Yours, too," he says, ridding her of her shirt as she had his. And then he returns her gentle kiss, but instead of progressing to her eyelids, he moves to her shoulders. He starts by kissing her on the right one, and while he moves his lips and tongue first to the curve below her ear and then into the dip of her collarbone, he uses one hand to push her bra strap slowly down her left arm. As he kisses his way across her upper body, he pushes down the other ribbon of a strap.

He's nowhere near her breasts yet and she's already almost delirious. "I can't, I can't move my arms, Castle. Take it off, please. Take it off."

He reaches behind her, unhooks her bra, and lets it join their two shirts. She buries her hands in his mane of hair, and she's groaning, pressing his head down her chest. He takes one of her breasts in his mouth, tweaking the nipple of the other between his thumb and finger, and nudges her with his forehead until she drops backwards on to the mattress and brings him with her. He's somehow managed to unbutton her pants, and he slithers down to the end of the bed so that he can drag them off her.

She'd thought that she'd wanted gentle at first, for their first time, but she's changed her mind. Slow and quiet can be next, like the second movement in a symphony. She's burning up; she wants fast and hot and hard and loud, fortissimo, and she's pretty sure she'll have no trouble persuading him.

"Castle, Castle."

He'd just begun to move his hand underneath the band of her lacy bikinis and she startles him. "Kate?"

"Come here, come up here."

She wants him up there? When he already has evidence, on his fingertips, of just how much she wants him down here? "What?"

She's scrabbling against the silky coverlet, and she can't get any purchase, can't grab him to haul him back up. Finally she gets hold of his forearm. "Please, please, please."

Using his knees and his hands, he moves until they're face to face, and he's propped up on his elbows. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing. Thank God you're not wearing a belt." She's frantically unzipping his jeans and trying to push them down his hips—while her own hips are, of their own volition, rising to meet them. She wraps her hand around him and gasps. "You're as ready as I am. I can't wait, Castle. I can't. It was so long I was waiting, I can't wait." Her heel is in the small of his back, and she's trying to shove his pants off with it, too. "Get those off."

He wriggles out of them, and his shorts, as fast as possible, and hovers just above her. "They're off."

"I know, I see, I feel. I need you inside me now, please. Don't wait."

His eyes are inches away from hers, and he sees everything in them, all at once. Want and desperation and lust and happiness and—he'd bet on it, but he won't say it out loud—love. "Well, since you said please, okay."

She raises her head as she wraps both legs around him. "Don't tease." Her mouth takes his, and he takes her, in one smooth, uninterrupted move. He's never experienced anything like it. She's perfect. They're perfect. He could stay like this forever. Not forever, but he wants to savor this.

She's never experienced anything like this, never wanted something so passionately and been instantly fulfilled. It's thrilling. She never wanted to be possessed, hated even a suggestion of someone possessing her, but she wants it now. "Move, Castle," she says against his lips. She's thrusting up against him, sweat-slicked, using her feet and hands to try to pull him closer, so they're one person. She's always hated that idea, too, the surrender of self, until now.

Anything she asks, he'll do. Anything. He'd rather explore her slowly, every bit uncovered and caressed, but if she wants this, right now, so does he. He's driving into her relentlessly, and she's wild. Unrestrained but completely focussed. She's clenching around him, squeezing him, and he's trying to hold back.

"Don't. Don't hold back," she says.

Jesus, is she reading his mind? He barely knows what he's thinking, but she's latched on. And then she bites his nipple and he presses his thumb on her clitoris and she screams and he spills into her and they both go into some other starry sphere, and collapse. He tries to roll off her, but she won't let him. It's a while before they can breathe evenly, and then he does roll over, and pulls her on top of him.

"You are so good at this," she says, and kisses him over his heart. "Way beyond good. You are stratospherically good, but I don't want to know how. Is that terrible? I don't like that there was anyone before me. It's stupid, I know."

"Not stupid, Kate," he says, and kisses her back. "You know what's strange? Fantastic strange, but strange?"

"What?" She smoothes his eyebrow with her finger.

"It felt, feels, as if there never was anyone before you. As if, as if they were, they've been erased. We've got a clean slate, it's a clean slate. Okay?"

"Okay."

"It could it be a little bit dirty, though."

"Oh, it could be a lot dirty, Castle."

He laughs, and she laughs, and then he's very serious. "There's not going to be anyone after you."

"Or you."

They lie like that for a while, making out a little bit, whispering in the dark, even though they're alone in the loft. And then he drifts off, holding her hand. He needs recovery time; she doesn't. So she watches him sleep, flat on his back. They're here now, the here that she'd been pushing away for so long. And tonight, in the end, or the beginning, because this is definitely the beginning, it had all been so easy. No, not easy, exactly, but so right. It seems, they seem, so inevitable in the afterglow. She doesn't usually trust afterglow, she's deeply suspicious of it, but this is different. This is the real thing. She's feeling fuzzy and nostalgic and giddy, like a lovestruck girl in some musical. She thinks about _My Fair Lady_ , and thanks Martha and the musical gods for delivering her here. And looking at him she remembers a song she hasn't thought of in years. She hums it softly, never taking her eyes off him.

 _We have nothing to remember so far, so far,  
_ _So far we haven't walked by night and shared the light of a star.  
_ _So far your heart has never fluttered so near, so near  
_ _That my own heart alone could hear it._

They've been together so long without being together. That's why this is so familiar and so new, all at once. His eyes are moving, but he doesn't open them. She rests her cheek on his chest and hums again.

 _We haven't gone beyond the very beginning,  
_ _We've just begun to know how lucky we are.  
_ _So we have nothing to remember so far, so far_.

"What is that, Kate?"

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's beautiful. What is it?"

"Just an old song. About us."

TBC

 **A/N** Thanks to everyone who drops in on this, and especially to those who leave word.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** And we're back in T territory, at least for now.

Her alarm goes off at 5:30. It's already light, though it's not quite sunrise. When she taps the snooze button on the phone, she's grateful that it's programmed to ring then—who knows when she'd have woken up otherwise. She still can't believe that she's here, even as she rolls over to look at her sleeping partner. Wow, partner. They're that kind of partners now.

They're both naked, and the only thing left on the bed is the fitted bottom sheet and some tormented pillows. She has to shower and get ready for work—thank God she has makeup, clean underwear and a blouse in her bag, and pants and shoes in her locker at the precinct—but she can't bear the idea of getting up yet. The alarm will ring again in seven minutes; she can spoon with Castle until then. Between the unimaginably great sex and the talking, they'd been up virtually all night. He can stay in bed, but she'll have to run on adrenaline and caffeine all day. She turns on her side again to snuggle up to him; her mind is drifting happily when she feels him begin to nuzzle her neck.

"It's summer, Castle. I can't cover up with a scarf, and if you leave a mark on me I'll fucking kill you."

"You're fucking killing me already."

"You're speaking metaphorically, I'm not," she says, as his hand sneaks under her arm and cups her breast.

"No one has ever said 'metaphorically' to me in bed before. You wouldn't believe how sexy that is."

She turns her head so that she can look over her shoulder at him; they're almost touching noses. "I don't want to know what anyone else has said to you in bed, ever. Got that?"

"Got it," he says, and runs his tongue behind her ear. "You know what else I got?" He runs his palm down her stomach, strokes the crease of her hip and feels her shiver.

"What?"

"You."

"Aww." She folds her hand over his and brings it to her lips to kiss it. The instant she lets go, he puts it right back were it was. She has no objection whatsoever.

"How are you feeling?"

"Ecstatic. Ecstatic but exhausted. I'm not sure that I can walk."

"Yeah, well, after what you did to me, I really have to do an inventory of my body parts, make sure that everything is functioning."

She giggles. When had she turned into a giggler? She moves backwards and bumps up against him. "Well, one thing's definitely functioning."

"Should I test it? Test drive? Take you for a spin?"

"No time." She can't help laughing. "I have to take a shower and go to work."

"We could shower together."

"Really? And that will save time?"

"I could wash your…back."

"You're insatiable," she says, and rolls over to kiss him.

"Look who's talking."

"Must be the Boston cream pie you had, Castle."

"Could be. But I'd much rather be eating—"

"Don't even start," she says, covering his mouth with her hand.

She'd washed her hair at his house last night, after swimming, so she doesn't need to do that; the shower is a quick one. It's only when she's out, and dripping onto the mat, that she realizes that the soap she'd just used is English pear and freesia. It's her favorite, but so expensive that she buys it only once in a while, as a treat. She walks a few steps to the freestanding wooden cabinet, opens the door, and finds nine bars on the shelf. How the hell had he known? Oh, she remembers. The evening after her apartment had been bombed she'd had too much wine and said morosely, "Shit, that son of a bitch even blew up my Jo Malone pear and freesia soap." And this is what he'd done. She almost weeps.

Wrapped in an enormous blue towel, she's in front of the mirror now, unzipping her small cosmetics bag. The door opens and Castle comes in, wearing his boxers, and she wants to jump him on the spot, but she can't. Work; she has to go to work. She promised. Work.

"Don't," he says, stopping behind her, pressing his chest to her back, and putting his hand over the little bag.

"Don't what?" She's watching his reflection.

"I've never seen you without make-up, Kate. You're so beautiful, so unbelievably beautiful."

She can't meet his eyes, so she just looks down at the countertop. "Thanks, Castle, but I do have to put on a little make-up for work."

"Okay," he says, putting both hands up in surrender. "Promise me something?"

"I'll try."

"Before we go to bed tonight, take off your make-up."

For this, she can meet his eyes, and she's beaming. "Think we're going to bed tonight, huh?"

"And you don't?"

"No."

"No?"

"I was thinking more like late afternoon. I get off shift at four. Now let me finish, I've gotta get going."

He races into the bedroom, and she thinks she hears him going through his pockets. He comes back into the bath, holding his phone up triumphantly and waving it in the steamy air. "Done!"

"What?"

"I set the alarm for three-forty so I can get everything ready before you come back here."

"What makes you think that I'm not going to my place?"

"You told me that your air conditioner died, so we should be here, shouldn't we? If last night proved anything, it's that we really, really heat up a room."

"What a line, Castle."

"Can't help it. You've reduced me to corn mush."

"Okay, cornball. Now move, please, so I can get dressed."

"I'll make you some coffee to take with you."

"Are you kidding? I walk in with one of your cups and you don't think Espo and Ryan might suspect something?"

"First of all, I doubt that they've catalogued my china, and second, I happen to have some anonymous paper to-go cups."

"I'm not going to ask why. I just hope they're not for the other women you've had here and had to hustle out the door before Alexis woke up."

"Kate. Kate, look at me." He's turning her in his arms, and he's deeply serious. "I've never, ever let a woman stay here, except Meredith occasionally, for which I profoundly apologize. But at least she's Alexis's mother, biologically, anyway. I don't want Alexis exposed to that. But you? That's a different story. So: I have the cups for mornings when I've had to hustle my daughter off to school, when we were running late and I wanted coffee while I took her there." He pulls her in close to him. He smells of sex and she's desperate to get right back in bed with him. "All right?"

"All right." She reluctantly moves out of his embrace Now, go make me coffee please, and I'll get dressed."

At the front door, she almost turns back, but steels herself. Still in her flat-heel boots, she gets up on tiptoes and brushes her lips lightly over his.

"I want a real kiss, Kate, not that."

"Okay, but no tongue, or I'll never leave."

"Fine," he says, sweeping her up and giving her a very long, X-rated kiss.

"Castle!" she says, swatting his chest when she's caught her breath. "You agreed, no tongue."

"Had my fingers crossed, doesn't count."

"Oh, God. Give me strength. And give me my coffee, please." She holds him off with one arm and extends the other for the cup. "Thank you. Bye."

"I'll call you!"

As she walks down the hall to the elevator, she waves a hand over her shoulder. If she were to turn around and see his face, she'd be a goner.

She'd had left plenty of time so that she's at the Twelfth well ahead of Esposito and Ryan, and can change into other pants and a pair of heels. When they arrive she's already at her desk, sipping her coffee and reading departmental emails.

"Have a good afternoon, Beckett?" Ryan asks.

"Yes, thanks."

"Do anything special?" Espo asks, parking his butt on the corner of her desk. "Get your lunch off your pants?"

"I did, not that it's any of your business."

"What else?"

Why is he asking? Can he tell? Shit, does she look like she just got laid? Four times? "Well, Esposito, since you're clearly so riveted by every detail of my personal life, I'll tell you. You're a detective, right?"

"That's what my badge says."

"Fine. Then you may have detected that we've just had a blistering heat wave. The fascinating news is that my A/C broke over the weekend but every store was sold out. So I took advantage of the break in the heat yesterday, and the restocking of the stores, and went shopping for a new one. There. Satisfied? I'm happy to tell you all the most interesting details, too, like how many stores I checked out, what brand I chose, number of BTUs, color of the trim, the efficiency rating, price, and how much I'll tip the kid who's going to install it for me after work today."

"Geez, so touchy."

"Geez, so nosy. Now excuse me, but I have to finish a bunch of emails that are almost as boring as shopping for air conditioners, but I'm paid to read them." She gives him a semi-death glare and he retreats to his desk. She knows that she should be ashamed of how easily she'd just lied to him, but she's not. She's kind of proud of it, in fact. It's the kind of thing Castle can do so well. He's really gotten into her—blood rushes to her face. Yes, he's gotten into her a lot in the last few hours. She takes a deep breath. Besides, she lied for a good reason: she's not supposed to be having sex with a colleague. Except she can name four, no, eight, cops she knows who are. Four couples. So now she knows five, and she and Castle shouldn't count, anyway. He isn't a cop, he's not paid, even if he should be, considering how useful he is. Her hands are shaking as she picks up her cup. Shit. She's drunk it all?

She hears the elevator doors open but she's not paying any attention. She needs to concentrate on her work, needs to get through the day without doing something idiotic. When she hears Ryan say "hey!" she barely registers it. But then she hears Esposito.

"Yo!"

She raises her head just as a thumb and four fingers—oh, those fingers, what they did to her last night and this morning—unwrap themselves from a coffee cup and rest it on her desk. "Castle?"

"Morning, Beckett, guys." He smiles at all three of them and Ryan and Espo jump up from their chairs to come greet their friend.

"Look who the cat dragged in," Espo says, giving Castle a hug.

"Not the cat, the Kate."

"What?" Ryan says.

She will kill him. She will drop him from the window by his heels. She will strangle him, shoot him, stab him, and for good measure drown him in the Hudson River. Although the look she's giving him should do the trick, rendering other homicidal methods unnecessary. What the hell was he thinking? She's on the edge of panic, and a song floods her brain.

 _Don't throw bouquets at me,  
Don't please my folks too much.  
Don't laugh at my jokes too much,  
People will say we're in love!_

He's looking at her. Right straight at her.

 _Don't sigh and gaze at me,  
Your sighs are so like mine.  
Your eyes mustn't glow like mine,  
People will say we're in love!_

"Yeah," he says nonchalantly. "I ran into her last night."

"You did, huh?" That's Espo.

"Outside PC Richards," she interjects. "Where I had just dropped three days' pretax pay on a new air conditioner."

"So I took pity on her and bought her a drink."

"Shoulda bought her an air conditioner, bro. You can afford it."

"I offered, but she refused."

"Very gentlemanly of you, Castle," Ryan says. "Good to see you, man. We missed you around here."

"Didn't expect you 'til September. You just stoppin' by or you back?"

"Oh, I'm back."

"Beckett didn't tell us."

"I didn't know." It's almost the only truthful sentence she's uttered since she'd gotten to work this morning.

"You get tired of hangin' out by the pool all day?"

"No, I got tired of my ex-wife nagging me about writing. Or not writing. Or anything else that came into her mind, like my tracking sand into the house. Until I reminded her that it's my house, not hers."

She hates to do it, but she has to keep up appearances, which means that she has to join the snark fest. "Trouble in paradise, huh, Castle?" Please, please, please let him understand why she's doing it.

"Not any more, Beckett. Gina and I have parted ways—except professionally, which can't be helped."

"Sorry to hear it," she says, returning to lying mode.

"Don't be. I have a fantastic contract. And I am a very happy man." He turns his head just enough so that she can see his face, but the boys can't. "Beyond happy," he says, and gives her such a smile that her knees shake, and her thighs tremble, and her eyes fill with tears.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** This chapter returns to M territory for a short time about three quarters of the way through. If you want to skip that part, stop reading at the line "At 4:17 he hears her knock and opens the door." You can pick up the thread again at "He's asleep in seconds."

Castle had gone in to tell the Captain of his return, and chatted with him for a bit. "Good to have you back, man," he'd said. "Been kind of dull around here without you, but I never said that."

"Right, sir."

It's a very quiet day in Murderville, so four of them are sitting in the break room for a few minutes, catching up. Castle had brought a stack of files from Beckett's desk, put them in the middle of the table, and opened one. "If Montgomery sees us, we'll tell him we're working on an old case," he'd said happily, and pulled out a chair.

Beckett had decided to take the chair opposite him, on the as-yet-untested theory that it will be easier to look at him than to have him next to her, and feel him pressing his thigh against hers or covertly squeezing her knee. "I told Castle about a couple of the cases he missed," she says, hoping to keep the conversation in the safe zone.

"Yeah. Makes me wish I'd come back sooner."

"The exploding hand, am I right? That had your name all over it, bro," Espo says.

"True." Castle looks crushed.

"She tell you about the guy who drowned in the kitchen sink?"

"The sink?" Castle gives his partner an astonished look. "No, she did not, Ryan. How can a grown man drown in the sink? Unless he was a, you know, little person?" He holds his hand out at tabletop level. "Or it was some humongous sink?"

"Nope. But he had a very strong, very pissed off girlfriend who filled the sink with gin and held his head in it until, as she said, 'the freakin' bubbles stopped coming outta the bastard's ugly nose'."

"Let me guess. Juniper Juice? Was that the brand?"

Ryan's eyes are wide; he's impressed. "Man, how'd you know that?"

"Oh, I see where this is going," Beckett says.

"You do?" Esposito frowns. "How?"

"Juniper Juice is terrible gin."

"So?"

"Detective Beckett is correct, gentlemen. It's rotgut. Worst gin ever made. If that woman had had even a trace of affection left for the guy she'd have drowned him in something better."

"Much as I love this trip down Alcohol Alley, guys, we need to get back to work," Beckett says as she stands up.

"I thought you, we, didn't have a case?"

"We don't. Doesn't mean there aren't things we should be doing."

"Not me," he says, following her out to the bullpen. "Not if you're talking about paperwork. Not in my job description. Of course, technically I don't have a job description."

"How about this for a job description, Castle?" Espo asks. "You been lounging around in the Hamptons for weeks while we've been sweatin' in the city. Protecting and serving. How's about you bring us some lunch?"

"It's not even nine. Isn't that kind of early for lunch?"

"He's got a point, Espo. Tell you what, Castle, if you help me with some paperwork for a couple of hours, and there's still no new case after lunch, you can go home and none of us will complain that you're not helping. And you get a free pass until the next body drop. We won't ask you to come in 'til then. Sound good?"

"Yeah." The part of it that sounds good is sitting at her desk, where he will shuffle papers while he breathes in the scent of her and revels in the memory of what she looks like under that blouse. Since what's under it turns out to be, as he so recently and happily discovered, even better than he had ever imagined. And he has one hell of an imagination, if he does say so himself.

"Now siddown and start making yourself useful," she says. Did he always smell this good? And didn't he use to leave only two buttons on his shirt undone? Now there are three, resulting in the exposure of an alluring expanse of skin, and every time he flips over a piece of paper she sees the muscles move in his chest, which means she has to clamp down on various muscles of her own. It's deliberate, he's absolutely doing this deliberately. They've been working—at least she has, but she's not sure what he's doing—for a while when she thinks she hears him humming. She looks at him: he's scanning, way too innocently, an evidence inventory list. He's humming! That son of a bitch is humming, just loud enough for her but no one else to hear, "I Wanna Sex You Up." She ignores him. Well, visibly ignores him. What's not visible is another matter. A few minutes after eleven she goes to the ladies room, splashes cold water on her face and wrists, and sends him a text.

"Don't know how long I can take this. You're driving me insane."

He feels his phone vibrate and clicks it on. Thank God he'd muted it because it's a text from Kate, and after she'd left the loft this morning he'd changed her alert to Usher's "Bad Girl." He taps a reply.

"I am? Really? What are you gonna do about it?"

She steps out of the ladies room into the hallway and waits until she's almost in sight before she stops to answer. "Tie you up and fuck you senseless the minute I get home." That should shut him down for the moment. She can hear him coughing before she gets to her desk.

"You all right, there, Castle?" she asks brightly. "Swallow something the wrong way?"

More coughing follows.

"You better not be comin' in here with a cold, Castle," Espo calls out from his desk. "I'm going on vacation end of the week, and I ain't gonna be using that as sick time."

"He's fine," Beckett says. "Something just got caught in his throat." She reaches for a new file, spends a quarter of an hour on it, and begins to hum, very softly, "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You." Two can play at this game.

Castle pushes his chair back and gets to his feet. "It's almost noon. I'll go get lunch, okay? What kind of food do you want?"

"Seeing as you're buying," Ryan says, "the good stuff. Italian. Chicken parm for me."

"Make that two," Espo says. "And don't forget the garlic bread."

"What about you, Beckett?" Castle asks. "The same?"

"No. I'll just have a Caesar salad, thanks. Not really hungry right now. I'll probably grab something when I get home."

When he gets in the elevator, he puts his fist in his mouth to keep himself from screaming. The restaurant is only five blocks away, and it's early enough that there's no one ahead of him in line. Once he's placed his order he takes out his phone.

Beckett's phone pings. Uh huh, she figured. A text from Castle.

"What exactly will you be grabbing when you get home?"

She'd been sure he'd take the bait, and knows she should have prepared a comeback. She has to think for a moment before she replies.

"Something south of the border." She turns off her phone to avoid further temptation.

"Hey, guys? I'm going to run across the street to the bakery and get a little dessert. We were kind of tough on Castle today, you know? I have to admit I'm glad he's back."

"Me, too," Ryan says.

"Right," Espo adds.

She takes the stairs down, humming the whole way.

"Luncheon is served," Castle says as he exits the elevator with two plastic shopping bags. "Can we eat in the interrogation room?" He looks around. "Where's Beckett?"

"Ran out to get something. Said she'd be right back. C'mon, Javi."

The three men are unpacking lunch when she walks in. "Why are we eating in here?"

""Well, Beckett," Castle says. "I've missed the ambience of this room and thought I'd jump right back in, have the full olfactory experience. I'm reminded of the full-body-sweat terror you produce in your doomed interrogatees."

"Big word, Castle."

"Big writer," he answers, and takes a seat.

When the four of them have almost finished their lunch—which has been accompanied by good-natured teasing and storytelling, as if nothing had changed over the summer—Beckett says, "Oh, I got dessert. I'll be right back." She returns with a large plate of chocolate-frosted cupcakes and a small plate with one sugar-dusted confection.

"This is for you, Castle," she says as she places it in front of him. "It's a welcome-back doughnut." She sees him swallow, hard, and hopes that the boys are so dazzled by the cupcakes that they miss it.

"You shouldn't have," he wheezes.

"Of course I should. I thought it would have great associations for you. You know, cops, doughnuts. Memories to savor, right?"

"Right," he says, more than slightly worried that he too may be on the verge of full-body-sweat terror. "Thank you. I do, um, love a good doughnut." He picks it up and takes a large bite. "Really makes me feel like a cop."

Beckett checks her watch. "Sorry, but I think the party's over, guys. Thanks for lunch, Castle. It was really sweet of you."

"Yeah, thanks, man," Ryan says, and Espo agrees.

"But I get to go home, don't I, Beckett? I stayed to help this morning and we ate lunch and no one's been bumped off in the cozy confines. You'll call me the next time someone is, right?"

"Yup, that was our deal."

"Okay. I'm out of here. Bye, all."

As she watches his retreat, she realizes that she's never been more relieved and never more dejected at someone leaving the premises. She manages to get through the next three hours in a perfectly normal way. She hopes. She's sure. She checks herself at regular intervals, and checks her phone at the same time. He has sent her seventeen texts, but she doesn't reply except to confirm that she'll come back to the loft after work. Everything is fine.

Everything is fine. He'd bought flowers and wine and steak and fresh corn and tomatoes on the way home. The table is set and the meat is marinating. He's changed the sheets on his bed and put fresh towels in his bathroom and swapped the bars of cedar-and-sandalwood soap for ones of pear and freesia. At 3:45 he opens the wine to let it breathe. At 4:17 he hears her knock and opens the door to let her in. At 4:17:21 he has her pressed against the wall, his mouth covering hers, one hand in her hair and the other already making its way under her blouse. At 4:19:55 the blouse hits the floor. At 4:24:09, she's riding his thigh when she gasps, "Castle, what are you doing?"

"I'm trying—" he says, before his mouth decides it would rather latch onto her breast than talk.

"What? Trying what?" She's upright, but barely.

It's 4:25:37 before he can answer. "Fuck you senseless before you do it to me."

"Okay, then."

At 4:31 precisely, when she's half dressed and still up against the wall, she comes so hard that she digs her fingernails into his shoulder and almost draws blood. He doesn't mind and she's too far gone to notice.

By 5:15, when they're sprawled across his bed, the orgasm tally is four: three for her, one for him.

"Castle?"

"Mmm?"

"I will never, ever again ask you to hold your tongue."

"Good to know."

She rolls over on top of him, and rests her chin on his chest. "Is it my turn?"

"Your turn to what?" He sounds very sleepy.

"To fuck you senseless."

"Can we wait a little while? I want to be awake to enjoy it."

"Sure." But not too long, she thinks.

He's asleep in seconds. She's still lying on top of him, watching his face. It's so unexpectedly serene, serene and happy. Even in sleep. She feels a rush of something, of a lot of things, that they are where they are. And she knows, and knows he knows, that they're both in this for the rest of their lives. She remembers the Billie Holiday period she went through during college, and then after her mother died. She hasn't listened to her since, which is a pity. She will again now. But Billie Holiday made a miracle of a song that speaks to her right now. She lets it roll through her while she watches Castle sleep.

 _I've always placed you far above me,_  
 _I just can't imagine that you love me._  
 _After all is said and done,_  
 _To think that I'm the lucky one,_  
 _I can't believe that you're in love with me._

She figures that he's slept long enough, so she shimmies down his body, begins to stroke him, and takes him in her mouth. She wonders how long it will take him to come to.

"Jesus, Kate."

She releases him just long enough to smile and say, "Good, you're awake."

And that is why they don't have dinner until nearly 10 o'clock. She's having a second ear of corn, and butter is running down her chin, when she says, "Castle, promise me you won't come to work this week."

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She doesn't want him to come to the precinct? She might as well just shoot him, or stab him in the heart, or drown him in bad gin. His fork has stopped mid-trajectory, and juice is dripping onto his lap from a piece of steak. "What? Why?"

"Oh, Castle," she says, putting her corn on her plate and reaching her hand across the table to caress his cheek. "You look like I just stole your puppy."

"It's a hell of a lot worse than grand theft canine, Beckett. You don't want me there?"

"Of course I want you there, you lunatic. Haven't you figured out by now that I want you everywhere? That's the problem, the _wanting_. We've known each other for two years, but everything totally changed last night."

"Because we had sex."

"Oh, it was a lot more than having sex."

"I know. I know it was."

"So now our life, or at least my life, is split in two in a very new way: before yesterday and after yesterday. It's going to take me a little while to—to everything. Not to cry when you look at me so sweetly, not to have to run to the ladies room because your hand is on my knee and I'm about to have an orgasm at my desk."

"You'd have an orgasm if I put my hand on your knee?" He looks both stunned and thrilled, and has no reaction at all when the piece of steak falls off his fork and lands on his thigh.

"Be serious."

"I am serious. I take your orgasms very seriously. So you could really come if I put my hand on your knee?"

"I might," she says, letting the tiniest smile raise the corner of her lip.

"Can we try it?"

"Here, yeah, but not at the precinct. Stay where you are, Castle. This is what I mean. At this point I can barely control myself around you, and if I interpret the evidence correctly, I'm pretty sure that the same is true for you."

"Yeah, why do you think I showed up at work this morning? Five minutes after you'd gone I already needed to see you."

"If it weren't so adorable I'd have throttled you. I was so unprepared, and the boys were right there and—. Geez, Castle."

"Good improv with the air-conditioning story. My mother would have been impressed."

"Thank you. And take your hand off my knee this instant, you perv."

"Can't help it, Kate. You're the one who drew the filthy picture."

"See? There you go again. Look, I'm not saying never come back to the Twelfth, I'm saying please stay away for one week. I think in that time I can learn to stop acting like a hormonal teenager, at least in the work place. Just the rest of this week. That's only four more days, okay?"

"I don't think your homicideless spell will last that long, do you? And you promised to call me when a dead body came your way."

"Which is why you, the master storyteller," she says, picking up her ear of corn and pointing it at him, "are going to come up with a very good, very credible explanation for your absence the rest of this week."

"So I can't even casually drop by and give you a cup of coffee?"

"You may not."

"Even if I bring a box of doughnuts for everyone, and you just happen to be there?"

"No." She looks teasingly at him. "You liked that welcome-back doughnut, didn't you? It really made you feel like a cop?"

"Yes," he says, with the best leer in his arsenal, "it did indeed make me feel like a cop. And I think you have ample proof of my being able to wield a nightstick."

"Oh, God, Castle." But she can't help laughing as she says it.

Together they clear off the table, load the dishwasher, and put away the leftovers. She wants to check her emails, so he strips down to his shorts, brushes his teeth, and gets into bed to wait for her. He hears her rattling around in the bathroom and is beginning to wonder what she's up to when she emerges, dressed in nothing but one of his tee shirts.

"You took off your make-up."

"Of course I did," she says, folding up her insanely long legs as she curls into his side.

"Thank you," he whispers into her ear.

"You're welcome," she whispers into his shoulder, and kisses his bicep. "Castle?"

"Mm hmm?"

"I'm so sleepy."

"Then go to sleep."

"Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Kate."

"I think you wore me out."

"Sorry."

"Don't be."

"Okay."

"'kay."

He feels her relax against him, melt into him. Her breathing evens out, and slows a little. He looks at her. The truth is that she wore him out, too, but he's so wired that he can't sleep. She's in his bed. His heart. His brain. His lungs. Everything, everywhere. He watches her for a very long time. Once in a while she moves a little, adjusts, rearranges, but she never loses contact with his skin. If he were standing rather than lying down, it would level him. He's so wrapped up in her—the dream of her, the reality of her—and what has happened so slowly and then so quickly that he can't sort anything out. Except that he's finally aware that he's been waiting for this without entirely knowing it. Hoping is one thing, fantasizing, but actually waiting? That's different, and yes, it's exactly what he's been doing. A song he's heard bubbles up in his brain, as if it had been written for this moment. Maybe it had.

 _I've waited a hundred years,  
But I'd wait a million more for you.  
Nothing prepared me for  
What the privilege of being yours would do_

 _If I had only felt the warmth within your touch,  
If I had only seen how you smile when you blush,  
Or how you curl your lip when you concentrate enough.  
Well, I would have known  
What I was living for all along._

She's right. He has to stay away from the precinct for a while; he needs to be professional, act professional, too. But she'll be leaving for work in a few hours and he has to have an excuse ready. He does a lot of good thinking in the tub, but he doesn't want to wake her, so he tiptoes out of the room and goes upstairs to the guest bath. While he's running the water he gets giddy remembering that she'd stood in there this morning, showering. It's as if she's here with him, even though she's really downstairs in an Egyptian cotton cocoon.

Just before his fingertips become deeply pruny, he settles on a story. It's good; it will work. He lets the water out of the tub and rinses off with the hand-held shower. When he slides into bed a few minutes later she's on her side, one hand fisted under her chin. The tee shirt has ridden up her rib cage, and he can see the outer curve of her right breast. He has to force himself not to wake her up.

When he wakes up he smells coffee. He gropes for his phone on the nightstand: 6:05? How is that possible? He tosses off the covers and trots to the kitchen, where Kate is standing at the counter with a mug.

"Morning, Castle. Want some coffee?"

"I want a hug and some coffee."

He gets both, and then she puts her mug in the sink. "I took a shower, but I have to go home for clean clothes."

"I'll drive you."

"Wearing that?" She nods at his boxers.

"It takes me less than a minute to put on jeans and a tee shirt."

"What about your hair?"

"It can wait 'til I get home."

"Wow, Castle, you'd do that for me? Go out without product in your hair?"

"I'd do anything for you, Kate."

"I appreciate that," she says, planting a kiss in the middle of his chest. "Does anything include a really good excuse for your not being in the precinct this week, since you announced your return only yesterday?"

"It does. I'll tell you in the car. And I'll wait for you to get dressed and then drive you to work." He was right: he reappears in a minute, dressed and carrying a pair of sneakers, and stops at the door to retrieve his car keys.

"I'll hold those," she says, grabbing them from his hand. "You tie your shoes."

When the elevator door opens to let them into the garage, she takes off ahead of him. "Hey!" he shouts.

"I'm driving," she says as she stands next to the Ferrari, clutching the keys. "I won that race, fair and square."

"Okay." When she slams on the brakes in front of her building, he estimates his heart rate is 200. "I'll stay down here," he says, Mr. Cool. The minute she walks into her lobby, he falls over on to the seat next to him. "Jesus, can she drive. I've never been so terrified." He hopes he can recover before she returns. Ah, there she is, pushing open the door. Does she have any idea what she looks like? Sex on feet, that's what. And the feet are inside shoes that make him light-headed, so high that they put every muscle, tendon, and sinew in her legs in high relief inside those pants that should be against the law in public. The same legs that were—

"Hey, Castle."

"Hey!"

"I'll get out three blocks before, okay? So no one sees me in your car."

"Uh huh."

"I'll tell the boys about your not coming in."

"Uh huh."

She's about to turn the key in the ignition but instead turns to him. "You all right, Castle?"

"Uh huh."

"You sure?"

"Uh huh. You look, you look really great. That's all. Just gonna miss you today."

"I'm gonna miss you, too." She leans over and kisses him. "But no more than one text an hour, right? We agreed."

"Uh huh." When she stops the car again his heart rate is probably 250.

She buys a coffee around the corner from the precinct, but still manages to get in just ahead of the boys. It's midmorning when Ryan says, "Where's Castle?"

"Oh, forgot to tell you. He called to tell me he won't be in the rest of the week."

"We scare him off already?" Espo asks, pleased with himself.

"More like Gina scared him. Apparently once they broke up again and she wasn't there to crack the whip, he wasn't as productive as he should have been and now he's behind schedule on his book." She picks up the coffee she'd made in the break room a few minutes earlier, takes a sip and a calming inhale. She has to be convincing. "Plus, she's making him go along on a book retreat in a camp in the Catskills so that he can—" she makes air quotes with her hands—" 'act as guide and mentor to young writers in whom Black Pawn is investing considerable resources'."

Espo cackles. "Camp? Castle is going camping? Like with mosquitoes and tents and latrines? Ain't gonna last a day."

"I don't think it's quite that primitive, but there is something that will drive him nuts."

"Yeah? What."

"No cell phones."

"A lot of those places have no service," Ryan says. "Too remote. Gonna be tough on him."

"It's worse than that," she says. "It's that Gina's forbidding them. Says they're too distracting. No electronic devices of any kind."

She's grateful that the phone rings then; even more grateful, though she's chagrined to admit it, that there's been a murder. She could really, really use the distraction. And she can tell Castle all about it over dinner.

Except there's not much to tell because the perp confesses on the spot. Not quite the spot, but almost—at the station, ten minutes after they haul him in. A little drug war fueled by a lot of macho swagger: one small-time strutting dealer bumping off another. She uses her four o'clock text to ask Castle to come to her place tonight; her five o'clock to say she'll be home by seven; her six o'clock to ask if he'd mind bringing Chinese food with him. They finish eating at eight; they're in bed five minutes later, but they don't go to sleep for a long time.

And so they manage to get through the week. They'd intended to go to the Hamptons for the weekend, but when a nor'easter comes barreling in and brings with it a forecast of three days of uninterrupted rain and wind, they decide to forego the beach. "This is a fantastic opportunity," he says. "We can stay home in bed for sixty hours."

"We can't stay in bed the whole time."

"Why not?"

"Because we should have some variety, Castle."

"Oh, I can you show you lots and lots of variety."

"Let's go out tonight."

"Are you asking me on a date, Beckett?"

"I am. To the movies."

"Can we sit in the back row and make out?"

"It's a first date, but okay."

"Can I try the thing with your knee? We'll be fully clothed."

"Maybe."

"So what movie are you taking me too, if I may be so bold?"

"I read in the paper that the Film Forum is showing a new print of _The Quiet Man_. I've only ever seen it on TV."

"You mean the John Ford _Quiet Man_? Shot in Ireland? John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara? I'm in."

They decide on the seven o'clock show. Partly because of the weather, the place is packed, so they have to sit in the next-to-last row rather than the last. And despite the fact that they're both very interested in the movie, they're somewhat more interested in each other, and when the lights come up they're still engaged in a deeply exploratory kiss.

"Castle?" says a surprised but familiar voice behind them. " _Beckett_?"

The guilty parties break apart, turn around, and find themselves looking into an alarmingly familiar pair of Irish eyes. "Ryan?"

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you to reviewer mobazan27 for recommending the beautiful "Turning Page" (I hate the movie from which it comes, but love the song). It dates to 2011, but I've introduced it to this 2010 story: Castle probably knows a time-machine guy.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

In the old movie theater on Houston Street four people simultaneously have devout thoughts. There's Ryan ("holy Mother of God"), his girlfriend, Jenny ("holy cow"), and Castle and Beckett, who are—as they often are, but now more than ever—sharing a brain ("holy shit").

It's the effervescent Jenny who speaks first, after stepping aside so that other moviegoers can get out into the aisle. "So, did you enjoy the movie?"

"Great, it was great. It's one of my favorites and Ka—Beckett, Beckett." Castle is already stumbling over his words. "She happened to mention that she'd only ever seen it on television and heard that it was playing here so she wanted to get the whole, uh, experience." He's finding it hard to think, except to think that they should have stayed the hell in bed, just the way he'd wanted.

At his side, the usually unflappable detective is very flapped. And red-faced. Oh, what the fuck, she says silently, there's no way they can talk themselves out of this. Besides, it's Ryan and Jenny and they're adorable. "I did, I did get the whole experience. Thanks to Castle." She grabs his hand, laces her fingers through his, and holds tight. "I especially loved the last part," she adds, and clears her throat. "As you saw."

Ryan, his blue eyes almost impossibly wide, is the only one who has neither moved nor spoken. His mouth opens and closes a few times before he finally comes out with, "You two, you're?" He seems incapable of finishing the sentence.

"Dating?" Jenny fills in.

"It's our first date," Beckett says. And holy shit—again—that's the truth: she and Castle are on a date. An honest-to-God date, and their first ever.

Ryan is still flummoxed. "Aren't you camping, Castle?"

"Camping?" asks Castle, his partner in flummoxation.

What's the matter with these two guys? Beckett leaps in again. "He texted me last night, said he'd come home two days early. Didn't you, Castle?"

"Er."

"When the weather turned so terrible, Gina cut short the writers' retreat and they all left." If he doesn't pick up the narrative thread, she'll kill him.

"Yeah, right, she did."

Beckett squeezes his hand, hard. On the verge of bone-crushing, might-require-surgery hard.

"And then this morning I called and said that I'd really missed you guys this week at the precinct and we got talking and met for lunch and said a few things that needed saying and ta da! Here we are." He smiles as if he's just both discovered and explained cold fusion. "On a date!"

A little lame, but it'll do, Becket thinks. "Would you guys like to get some coffee?"

"Coffee?"

"Yes, Ryan, the stuff we drink all day at work, only this would be a nicer place. There are some nice places around here, aren't there, Castle?" She raises an eyebrow at him and delivers another vise-like squeeze to his hand.

"It's Saturday night."

"So?"

"And it's raining."

"Right, Castle, all the more reason to go somewhere close by, don't you think?" Squeeeeeeze.

"Every place will be packed."

"I've got an idea," she says, breaking out her very best smile. "Can we go to your place?" She turns to Jenny. "Castle's loft isn't far from here and he always claims he has more snacks on hand than Dean and Deluca, which is a ludicrously overpriced store near him."

"Store?" He's truly shocked. "It's an _emporium_ , Beckett."

"Fine. Emporium. I went in there to buy a box of sugar cubes last year to take to Castle's poker game—you were there, Ryan, remember?—and it cost eight bucks or something."

Castle gapes. "They were not ordinary sugar cubes, Beckett. They were in the shapes of clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades."

"That's cute," Jenny says.

"For eight dollars, it should be more than cute. But what do you say, Castle? Can we go? I bet Jenny would love to see your place."

"Especially it that's where you wrote page one oh five," Jenny agrees, and giggles.

Oh, if you only knew, Castle thinks. Page 105 pales next to what's gone on in the loft over the last few days. For whatever reason, Kate wants them to go there, then they'll go. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, says excuse me to the others, and has a brief conversation. "Car will be here in five minutes," he says, slipping his phone back into his pocket. "Too far to walk in this rain. That okay with you, Ryan?"

"Sure. Great. Sounds great. Thanks."

"Gosh, Kate," Jenny says, putting her hand on Beckett's arm. "I feel like we're crashing your date."

"Not at all. I mean, we're on a date, but it's not like we don't know each other after two years of working together."

A quarter of an hour later they've stepped off the elevator and are walking down the hall to the loft when Castle has a searing memory of what had gone on in his kitchen this afternoon. Oh, God, the evidence left behind. As he unlocks the door with a slightly trembling hand he says, "Excuse me for going in ahead of you, but I need to get to the lights or we'll all be tripping over things in the dark." He goes to the panel of switches and heads straight for the crime scene, a few feet away. No crime was committed there—if it had been a crime he'd have willingly gone to jail just to have had the opportunity to do what they'd done—but it's definitely a scene. Yeeesh, they're here, right where she'd left them, on the counter. Okay, technically he'd left them, since he's the one who took them off her. He grabs the tiny, lacy, hot pink panties, shoves them into his pocket, gets the coffee beans from the fridge, and goes back to his guests. "Coffee okay with everyone? Or would you like something stronger? I have everything."

"Coffee's good for me, Rick," Jenny says, unabashedly gaping at her surroundings.

"Me, too," Ryan says.

"Same here. Jenny, would you like to freshen up? I could show you the powder room. I stayed here last winter after my apartment was bombed, so I still remember where most things are."

"Thanks, Kate."

Castle is busy with coffee and taking out an array of things to eat, and the moment Jenny closes the door Kate dashes to the sofa. "Ryan," she whispers.

"Yeah?"

"Shhh."

He lowers his voice. "Oh. Sorry."

"Please don't rat us out."

"I would never."

"I mean it. Not even to Espo. Especially to Espo. Please, Kevin?"

"It must be serious if you're calling me Kevin."

She blushes, and looks aside. "Yeah, it is."

"Okay. My lips are sealed. Jenny's too."

"Thank you. Thank you."

Perfect timing, because here comes Ryan's girlfriend. "Kev wasn't kidding. The loft is amazing."

"Yeah, it was kind of tough to move to my apartment after living in this palace for a week." She's sitting next to Ryan, and shoots him a look that she hopes he'll understand. "I'm going to see if Castle needs help," she says as she pushes herself off the sofa.

In the kitchen she sees a typical Castleian idea of a snack: cookies (five kinds), chips (three), nuts (four), pretzels, a bowl of grapes, a staggering array of cheeses, and an entire baguette, sliced and dropped into a basket. "I don't know if this is enough," she says.

"Really? Wait, I must have something else." He whips around to a cabinet and starts rummaging around on the top shelf. "Yes!" He pulls out three bags. "See? New kinds of gourmet popcorn. I knew they must be here."

"I was kidding, Castle."

"You were?" He's surprised. "Never kid about snacks, Beckett."

"Lesson learned," she says, and pats him on the butt. "Listen," she lowers her voice. "I asked Ryan not to tell anyone about us and he promised he won't. Jenny either."

"Ah, okay. Gotcha. Your plan. Good."

The two couples have a fun and chatty evening. When Jenny asks for the fifty-cent tour, Castle happily obliges, but not before closing the door to the master bedroom. "I can let you see my office, but I didn't make the bed today and I think I started sorting laundry that was in the hamper, so that's off limits this time. Everything else is open for you to survey."

Beckett silently thanks him. He's really found his footing in the last couple of hours, and obviously recalls exactly—as well he should— how they'd left his bedroom. She doesn't mind that Ryan knows about them, but she wants what he knows to go only so far, and it definitely doesn't include that.

It's almost midnight when Castle sends their friends home in a town car—"I'm not taking no for an answer, you'll never find a cab, and you'll drown before you get to the subway"—and he and Kate clean up. "Would you like some wine?"

"God, yes. After what happened? I'm surprised I don't need something stronger. But it's okay. Ryan is a man of his word." She leans tiredly against the counter. "You know what's incredible?"

"I'd say you, because I'm feeling sappy, but what's incredible?"

"That in a city of eight million people I ran into Gina a week ago, and tonight we ran into Ryan and Jenny. Some coincidence, isn't it? Coincidences, plural."

"Happy ones, ultimately."

"True. It's just, I'd never believe it if it hadn't happened to me."

"You sure you don't want the hard stuff, then?"

"If I have the hard stuff I'll conk out before I have my way with you."

"Wine it is, then. What way did you have in mind?"

"I'm going to surprise you."

Later, he's breathing hard and sweating, sprawled in the middle of the bed. "That was one hell of a surprise, Kate. You remember how you said you didn't want to know how I know what I know sexually? That goes for me, too. I'm actually praying that I'm the only man who's ever done that with you, whatever it is."

"Arc de Triomphe."

"That's what it is?"

"Yeah, because of my, uh, triumphal arch backwards onto your legs when we're—" she runs her foot up his calf. "And you are."

"I am what?"

"The only man. I read about it. I wanted to see if I could do it, imagined what it would be like with you."

"You read about it? Come here." He hooks his arm around her and pulls her over on top of him. "When?"

"A couple of weeks ago. In my tub. I was so down in the dumps about you, I was doing some heavy-duty fantasizing."

"I'd say I'm sorry," he says, pushing her hair away from her face, "but I'd be lying. I mean, I feel terrible that you were down in the dumps, but if that's what came out of it, ooh la la." He pulls her down for a deep kiss. "You know where we should go?"

"To sleep?"

"To Paris. Get more inspiration from their monuments."

"Monuments, huh? Like the Louvre? Or, I know, the Eiffel Tower."

"That could be very inspiring."

"Very phallic, anyway."

She lies flat on his chest, her head turned sideways so her face is directly over his heart. She loves the pulse against her cheekbone. He's running his hand lightly up and down her spine, and she's running hers around his ear. Eventually his hand falters and stops, and she knows that he's asleep, even though she's tickling his ear. She moves her head a little so that she can watch him, and the longer she watches, the louder a song is knocking at a door in her head. Why is that? Is it love? Ouch. Yes. But. It's weird, but it also delights her. It's never happened to her before. She mentally opens the door and invited the song to come in.

 _I see the whole world in your eyes,  
_ _It's like I've known you all my life,  
_ _We just feel so right.  
_ _So I pour my heart into your hands.  
_ _It's like you really understand  
_ _You love the way I am._

She feels herself falling asleep too, so she moves gently off his chest and snuggles against him.

 _Everything's all right,  
_ _'Cause it feels like I've opened my eyes again,  
_ _And the colors are golden and bright again.  
_ _There's a song in my heart, I feel like I belong.  
_ _It's a better place since you came along_.

She's barely awake, and the music in her head is winding down. She wonders if Castle ever thinks of songs when he looks at her. She has to ask him. She'll ask him in the morning.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you very much, readers. Special thanks to reviewer I'm Widget, who recommended the song in this chapter, Rachel Platten's "Better Place." It's a new one, but what can I say? Beckett must have an in with Castle's time-machine guy, too.


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

When the phone rings just after five on Monday morning, Kate grabs it and sits upright. It's dispatch. Immediately alert, she makes a note of the crime-scene address and says that she'll be there shortly. She'd fallen asleep without washing her face or brushing her teeth, and she feels as if there's been a mudslide inside her mouth.

"Get up, Castle," she says. He's lying on his stomach and taking up most of the bed; he doesn't budge. After three fruitless attempts to wake him, she resorts to smacking his butt.

"Ooh, feels good," he mumbles, his face pressed into the rumpled sheets. "Do that 'gain."

"Get your ass out of bed. Dispatch just called."

"Yay." He appears to have gone back to sleep, so she smacks him again and kisses him between the shoulder blades. That seems to have worked, since he's opened his eyes. She ruffles his hair and walks into the bathroom.

It definitely worked: she's covered in soap when she sees him push open the shower door open and join her. "No touchy feely in here, bud. We have about ten minutes to clean off and get dressed. Double homicide on Water Street."

"Then I'll be double fast," he says, cupping her breasts as he stands behind her and kisses her wet neck.

"Castle, I mean it."

"All right, all right, you slave driver."

She rinses off faster than he, steps out, then ducks her head back in. "You're quite the driver yourself," she says, closes the door tightly, and wraps up in a towel.

When they pull over at the curb on Water Street Ryan is already working inside the yellow-tape perimeter. He sees them get out of the car a block away and as they begin to walk towards him he catches Castle's eye, blinks, and rubs a hand across his cheek.

Castle, who's carrying two paper cups of coffee, stops. "Beckett, wait," he hisses.

"What?"

"Is there something on my face that shouldn't be there? Ryan's signaling me."

Without moving any closer, she gives him the once over. "Oh, shit. Yes. Lipstick. Right side. Wipe it off now before Lanie spies it." He does, and arrives clean-faced at the grubby spot where the victims are laid out on gurneys. The ME greets him and Beckett, but her lovedar does not go off; for the moment, at least, the newly-minted couple is safe.

The case is a tough one, and they work it nonstop, all day. Since Esposito is on vacation they're short-handed, and each has to shoulder more responsibility, but it also gives Beckett and Castle more time to adjust to their new situation without worrying that he's eying them. When they're still making no headway at dinnertime, the Captain sends the three of them home. On the way to the loft, Castle makes two stops, first to buy a DVD of _The Quiet Man_ , and then a pound of Irish bacon and a case of Irish beer; he calls a messenger service to deliver them to Ryan's apartment. "Thanks for keeping quiet and saving our bacon," Castle writes on a plain white card, and Kate adds a bright red imprint of her lips. They do not sign their names.

The case drags on. Beckett and Castle have behaved themselves at work, but on Wednesday night, when they're closing in on the suspect, they have a brief lapse on the backstairs between floors. Fortunately it's late at night, and there are no witnesses. They wrap up the case two hours later and stagger home at four a.m.

Montgomery effectively gives them the day off on Thursday, saying that they're on call.

"You know what I'd like to do today?" Castle says over breakfast in her apartment. "And this weekend?"

"I'd guess, but I'd rather you just tell me."

"I'd like to go away for the weekend."

"The beach?"

"No, somewhere else. A surprise."

"You know I hate surprises, Castle."

"C'mon, just this once."

"I doubt that it will be just once, but fine." She eats her last spoonful of blueberries. "What about today?"

"I want to meet Manny. You have to take your bike back some time."

She stands up, puts her bowl in the sink, and says, "Okay."

"What?" He looks as shocked as he sounds. "No argument?"

"Why would I argue? Seems like a sensible thing to do. I'll check to see if this is a good day for him."

Three hours later Kate is astride her Harley with Castle holding on in the rear, and they're turning the corner to the garage. Manny is waiting out front on the sidewalk, wearing Army boots, cut offs, a bandana, several earrings, and a ribbed cotton undershirt that's stretched to the snapping point across his massive chest. His tattooed arms and legs are a flesh-and-blood tourist guide to some icons of New York City: the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Radio City Music Hall, the former World Trade Center, three bridges, a yellow cab, a subway car, and a ferry. Pride of place—his right bicep—goes to a green rectangle, outlined in tiny hearts and stars, that says QUEENS for QUEENS.

"Geez," Castle breathes against her ear. "What's he got under the shirt?"

"Pierced nipples," his partner says as she gets off the bike and jumps into Manny's almost certainly steroid-enhanced arms.

Castle gapes as Manny spins Kate around and around, at least a foot off the ground. He deposits her as gently as a parent puts a newborn into a bassinet, and extends his hand.

"Manny Vito. I'm guessin' you're Rick."

"You guess right," he answers, taking Manny's hand. His knees immediately buckle, and it's only because Manny is holding on to his other arm that he doesn't hit the pavement.

"Good to meet you, dude. Didn't hurt you, did I?"

A red-faced Castle shakes his head. "Would take more than that. But, uh, hell of a grip there."

"Just my way of watchin' out for our girl, know what I mean?"

"Right, right. Understood."

Their 'girl' is laughing. "He was afraid that you were a romantic rival, Manny."

"Yeah, she set me straight," Castle says.

"Ain't nothin' would set me straight, dude. But just cause I'd rather dance with you than Kate don't mean I don't love her."

"You want to dance with me?" Castle squeaks.

"Nah, not my type." Manny throws his arm around Castle's shoulder and pulls him to his side. "No offense. I like guys who are a little more butch than you."

"No offense taken."

Kate, having parked her bike and covered it, is standing with her hands on her hips. "Are you two testosterone tossers ready for lunch?"

"Yup."

"Where are we going, Manny?"

"Roman Holiday."

"That's his favorite, Castle. Has pictures of Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni all over."

"Shouldn't it be Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck? They were the ones in _Roman Holiday_."

Manny rolls his eyes as adroitly as Kate ever has. "They're not Italian, dude."

"Right. Of course."

Castle orders the papardelle Bolognese—wide, flat noodles in a rich, beefy sauce—and Kate asks for linguine with clams. The waiter doesn't bother to ask Manny what he wants, just cocks his head and gets a nod in response.

They're well into their first glasses of wine when lunch arrives. The waiter serves Manny last: a platter of pasta with six or seven different vegetables, from red to green. "You're not having what I'm having?" Castle asks. "You said it was the house classic."

"It is. But I don't eat no red meat. This body—" he slaps his resonant chest—"is a temple, Rick. Don't let me stop ya, though. That is one great dish."

Castle takes a bite, and then another. "You're not kidding. Thanks, Manny."

By the time they're eating dessert—tiramisu is apparently not a temple violation—they're a new version of the three musketeers. "You shoulda told me about him a long time ago, Kate."

"It was complicated."

"Nothin' complicated about love, honey."

"You're right," Castle says, looking besottedly and slightly drunkenly at Kate.

"Yeah," she says, looking much the same. "I know that now."

They both hug Manny goodbye, take a car service home, and spend the rest of the day in Kate's bed. When they're on her sofa eating late-night Chinese takeout, she says, "I've been meaning to ask you something. You might think it's dumb."

"I find it hard to believe," he says, chasing a skittering dumpling with his chopsticks, "that you ever ask anything dumb."

"Oh, I do. It's, well, when I think of you, and when I look at you—a lot of the time I think of a song. It just comes into my head. Sometimes I even sing it, if you're sleeping." She brushes a crumb from her lap. Bet you never knew I could be so girly."

"It's not girly, it's romantic."

"So, I was wondering if I ever make you think of a song?"

"You're kidding."

"Told you it was dumb. Sorry."

"Kate, I have an entire play list dedicated to you."

"You're kidding."

"That was my line, but no, I'm not kidding."

"What's on it?"

"I'll show you when we're at the loft tomorrow. It's on my laptop."

"I want to see it now. How do I know you're not making this up?"

He hastily wipes his mouth on a paper napkin and gets to his feet. "Put your pants back on, Beckett, we're going to Broome Street."

On the way over he wonders if he'd been a little rash. Does he really want her to see every one of his fantasies about her, in song form? No. He'll just pick out a few, read them to her.

Except that once they're in his office, with her on his lap at his desk, that's not possible. She's determined to see the whole list. "How many could there be, Castle? Really."

"Really? Ninety-four."

" _Ninety-four_?"

"There were about eighty, but that was before you kissed me. I've added a bunch more since then."

She wiggles happily. "So that made the list grow, huh?"

"Not the only thing that grew."

"I bet. Open that file, Castle." She's stunned. There really are almost a hundred songs there, of every kind—erotic, sweet, funny, sappy, old, new. She slaps him on the arm. "Are you kidding? Snoop Dogg 'I Wanna Fuck You'? You don't even like rap, Castle."

"You should know that was the first song on the list. I felt like I shouldn't delete it."

"When was that?"

"March two thousand nine."

"Really?"

"Tisdale murder. Our first case. I went to bed thinking about you the day we met. All I wanted to do was fuck your brains out."

She turns in his lap and looks straight into his eyes, very seriously. "What about now?"

"Now? Oh, I love the sex," he says, equally seriously. "But I love your brains every bit as much. And you know what else?"

"What?"

"You make my heart sing."

She doesn't want to talk, just puts her head on his chest. "Mine, too," she says very softly. "You might be able to hear it."

Later, when they're both falling asleep, Kate says, "We still going away for the weekend?"

"Definitely."

"You going to give me a hint?"

"No."

"Castle, I have to know what to pack. A bathing suit? A parka? What?"

"All right. The weather's a lot like it is here and we'll go to a couple of nice restaurants."

"That's it?"

"No. That's all I'm gonna tell you, except to promise that you won't need a bathing suit or a parka. Night, Kate."

She gets up an hour earlier than usual so that she can go home and pack a small suitcase and drop it off with Castle's doorman before work. It's a quiet day in the precinct, the midsummer lull that the homicide division often gets, and Castle leaves early. "I'm going to go to the loft and get our bags. I'll meet you around the corner as soon as your shift is over, all right?"

"Hey, Castle?" Ryan says, getting up from his desk before Castle can board the elevator. "Just wanted to say thanks. That was really great of you and Beckett. The Irish package."

"You're our favorite Irishman, Ryan. And we meant what we said. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Have a good weekend."

"You, too."

When Beckett walks out of the precinct she turns left at the corner and sees a town car idling in front of the coffee shop. The driver gets out before she arrives, and opens the rear door for her. She slides into the cool, dark space and feels Castle take her hand.

"Our bags are in the trunk, so we're all set."

"You're still not going to tell me where we're going? We're in the car, I think it's safe to say."

"Tennessee."

There were many, many places on her mental checklist; Tennessee was not one of them. "Oh."

"Beautiful this time of year."

"Okay."

"Lots of things to do."

"What, like go to an Elvis festival?"

"You never know, Beckett."

"Care to be more specific?"

"Nope. Just want to have a fantastic weekend with you."

"Same here." And really, they could have a fantastic weekend anywhere. Castle could find fun in a rusty bucket in a mud flat. Besides, she's never been to Tennessee.

They chat happily about nothing in particular all the way to the airport and she's only vaguely aware that they've turned on to the access road to JFK. The car stops at the curb outside the terminal that's mobbed with travelers on a Friday summer afternoon, and she and Castle get out. He holds her hand as they walk inside, each wheeling a small bag, and points to the sign for first class passengers. "Over there."

"First class? Why am I even asking?"

"It's a long flight. You'll be glad."

"What, two and half hours? I think I could've managed to be in coach all the way to Tennessee."

"More like seven and a half hours. Oh, did I say Tennessee?"

"Yes, you did."

"You must have thought we're going to Paris, Tennessee. They do have a replica of the Eiffel Tower there. Sorry, that was a slip of the tongue. I meant France. We're going to Paris, France."

 **A/N** Thanks to all readers. Special thanks to two reviewers this time: Madelynn one, who suggested that Castle and Manny meet, and Roadrunnerz, who said, "I feel like we need a Paris chapter … complete with French songs." Coming right up, Roadrunnerz!

 **A/N** To the anonymous reviewer: if you correct someone's grammar, make sure that yours is correct. Check your punctuation, too. Also: a person who mentions Gibran in the same breath as Keats and Hopkins should be forced to stand in the corner.


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** I'm surprised that several people wrote that Kate won't be able to go to Paris without a passport. Have faith in Castle: there's no way that he would forget that detail. He may be in love, but he's not a nitwit! And now, bon voyage.

"Paris?" Kate is so shocked that she almost topples over her suitcase. "Are you crazy?"

" _Non, cherie_ ," Castle responds, using about ten percent of his French vocabulary before they've even left U.S. soil. " _Je suis pas de crazy_." He's pretty sure that's way off the mark, but also pretty sure that she'll understand him.

"I can't go without my passport."

"Don't worry, it's right here," he says soothingly, as he pulls a slim leather case from the inside pocket of his jacket and flips it open to reveal two passports: hers and his.

"How did you even find it?" she asks, as shocked by that as she is by their destination.

"When you got it replaced after your apartment was bombed you said that from now on you were going to keep it in your desk at the precinct since that seemed safer. Less likely to blow up. Nice picture, by the way. Mine looks like a mug shot." Relieved that she isn't furious that he'd gone through her desk, he smiles and slips both documents out of the case to give to the ticket agent. "They're ready for us; we can check in."

To save precious minutes when they land—because this is truly a flying visit—they carry their bags on board. They're barely in their buttery leather seats before a flight attendant brings them Champagne and ramekins filled with salted nuts. For the first time in her adult life Kate has room to stretch out her legs during a flight, and she does, sighing happily.

"Castle?"

" _Oui_."

" _Ah, tu parles français_!"

"Er, _non_."

"Don't worry," she says, patting his knee. "We'll stick to English."

"Thank God. Although please feel free to say sexy things to me in French."

She checks to make sure that no one's looking, then nips his earlobe and whispers, " _Castle, je suis raide dingue de toi_."

"That sounds incredible. Is it unprintable?" he asks hopefully.

"Nope. I just said that I'm totally crazy about you."

"I am, too. 'Red,' or whatever you said."

" _Raide_. Never mind." She clinks her glass against his. "I want you to know that I'm beginning to understand first class. Not that I really doubted you. I'm just glad you're the one paying for it." She takes a sip, and her eyes go wide. "You are paying for it, aren't you?"

"I am. Wait until it's time to go to bed."

"What?"

"These seats turn into beds. You can actually lie down on them and sleep." Several hours later, when they're miles above the Atlantic Ocean, he hears her murmur.

"Castle?"

"Mmm?"

"Please don't ever break up with me."

"I won't. Hey, what brought that on?"

"Cause I'm spoiled now and I could never afford to fly like this."

He drifts into a dream in which he's making a list of other ways he can spoil her.

There's a car waiting for them at the airport (of course there, is Kate thinks, not at all surprised to see a driver holding up a sign with Castle's name on it), and less than an hour later they're at the registration desk of the Hotel Raphael. It's small, quiet, distinguished, and luxurious.

"Your suite is ready, monsieur," the clerk says, handing over the keys.

"Thank you, Maurice. I'm sure it will be perfect."

"A suite, Castle? Wouldn't a room be enough?" she asks a few minutes later, as they leave the elevator and walk down the sixth-floor hallway.

"Nope."

"I know that you love extravagant gestures, but we're only going to be here til tomorrow evening."

"Still no." He tips the porter as quickly as possible because he doesn't want to miss Kate's reaction. From the corner of his eye he sees her hand fly to her mouth; it's clear that she's almost as stunned as she had been at the airport when he'd told her where they were going.

She's standing a few steps inside the door, looking around the sitting room, with its pair of white settees facing each other across a coffee table, a magnificent antique escritoire against one wall, and French doors leading onto a terrace. "Oh, my God, this is so beautiful."

"The presidential suite is bigger, but this seems more appropriate for us. Come here. Let me show you." He takes her hand and leads her out onto the terrace. "This is the Arc de Triomphe Suite," he says, as he points down the street at the dominant feature of their immediate landscape. "And that's why."

"The Arc de Triomphe. I can't believe it, Castle."

He pulls her close against his chest. "Maybe we can revisit the subject tonight. Your Arc de Triomphe moves."

"Maybe we can."

"For right now, how about some breakfast? I could call room service and we could shower while we're waiting."

"Yeah, I want to get out of these airplane clothes. And I'm starving."

While she's getting undressed and turning on the water, she can hear him on the phone. Good, he's not trying to order in French. "Castle?" she calls out. "This shower is great. Not as fantastic as yours, but almost."

"As long as there's room for both of us, it's fine with me," he says, stepping inside.

"Bienvenue à Paris." She gives him a very wet kiss.

"Even I know what that means," he says, kissing her back. "Welcome to Paris to you, too."

They have breakfast—fruit, croissants, deep bowls of cafe au lait—on the terrace. "What would you like to do first, Kate?"

She licks a bit of raspberry jam off her lip and he can barely contain himself. "Go to the Musée Carnavalet."

"Museum. A museum about carnivals? They have a circus museum here? That's cool."

"Sorry, no. The Carnavalet is a museum about the history of Paris. I'm dying to see the bedroom."

"We have a spectacular bedroom here, you know."

"I know, but this is _the_ bedroom, with _the_ bed."

"Trust Paris to have the definitive bedroom. I can't think of a better place."

"Castle, it's Marcel Proust's bedroom, and bed. He wrote _In Search of Lost Time_ there. I was so proud when I got through all seven volumes in French, you know? It took forever."

"Oh, yeah, I remember that he used to write in bed. I didn't know the bed was still around. He died in the Twenties. It's amazing that the bed survived the war."

"Well it did, and I want to pay it homage." Kate puts down her coffee and cocks her head. There are still so many things she doesn't know about him. "You ever do that, Castle? Write in bed?"

He looks very serious, until a smile blooms across his face. "Not since you arrived in it."

Some time later, when they've worked their way through the museum to the Proust exhibit, Castle is disappointed. It's small and dingy. Surely one of the greater writers ever deserved better? He's just about to say something to Kate when he he feels her trembling. She's weeping. She's so overcome with the place, with the weight of it, that she can't say a thing. He quietly takes a handkerchief and puts it in her hand.

"Thank you," she says, after drying her eyes. "I haven't been to Paris since I was a student, and this part of the museum was closed. I was furious. I had no money, either. I could just about manage to buy a coffee and a ticket on the metro."

They decide not to decide where to go; instead, they spend the day wandering around, in and out of museums and shops and cafes and parks. They eat escargots in a wine bar, and ice cream cones as they walk along the Seine. When the late afternoon sky is impossibly blue, Kate pulls Castle onto the grass, lies down, and begins to sing softly.

 _L'espoir fleurit_  
 _au ciel de Paris._

She kisses his hand, rolls on her side, and starts singing again, this time looking into his eyes as she does.

 _Sous le ciel de Paris_  
 _les oiseaux du bon Dieu_  
 _viennent du monde entier_  
 _pour bavarder entre eux._

And then she stops singing, but she doesn't stop looking.

"You're going to have to tell me what that means, Kate," he whispers, and brushes her hair from her cheek.

"The first part was 'Hope is blossoming in the Parisian sky'."

"And what about the rest?"

 _Beneath the Parisian sky_  
 _God's birds_  
 _Come from around the world_  
 _To chat among themselves._

"It's from an old French movie. I always loved the Edith Piaf version best."

"Nah, Edit Piaf has nothing on you."

"You think?"

"I do. You know what else I think?"

"No."

"I think we should go back to the hotel and take a nap before we go to dinner."

"Sold," she says, getting to her feet. "Next stop, the Raphael."

As soon as they're in their suite, Kate strips and gets into bed. Not entirely in bed: she's sitting up against the headboard, covered by the sheet only from the waist downward. When Castle comes in, he stops short.

"Whoa. I thought we were going to take a nap."

"Well, I'm in bed, aren't I?"

"Yeah, and they'll be no napping for if you're looking like that."

"I was thinking we could nap _après_."

"After, right? _Après_ what?"

" _Après_ sex."

He takes off his shorts, drops them on the floor, and jumps onto the bed. They're making out like two teenagers in the back seat of a (very expensive) car when Castle's knee nudges hers wide apart. "Why does everything sound so much sexier in French?" he says, his mouth about an inch above her breast. He draws two fingers up the inside of her thigh and stops when he feels her slick and warm and wet.

"Why do you think they call it French kissing?" she says. "And get those magic fingers of yours working, Castle, before I go insane."

Eventually, they really do nap. They nap so soundly that they wake up only because he'd had the foresight to set the alarm on his phone, and they take a hurried shower.

"So are we going to one of those nice restaurants you promised me?" she asks while she's doing her make-up.

"We are. So you could wear one of those nice dresses I saw you hang up in the closet this morning."

The dress of dark blue silk proves to be even naughtier than it is is nice, dipping deeply both front and back. Castle has a hard time concentrating on tying his tie. "You're hopeless," she says. "Let me do it."

The sun is already low when they get to their table at L'Épicure, a three-star restaurant where the service equals what's served. By the time they've finished their dinner, it's after eleven. "That's probably the single best meal of my life," she says. "I don't think I'll ever forget it."

"Neither will I. Good thing we're not driving, given all the wine we drank."

"You want to walk back, Castle?" she says cheerfully. "It's so beautiful."

"It is, but we've got a car waiting."

"Oh. Okay, I guess that's good. My feet might have given out part way there," she says, looking at her very thin, precariously high-heeled sandals.

They've been driving for a few minutes when she looks through the back window. "Wait, aren't we going the wrong way?"

"To the hotel, yes, but we're going somewhere else first."

"Please tell me it's not a patisserie or something. I really can't eat anything another bite."

"Not a patisserie, trust me. But you'll like it."

The not-a-patisserie they're going to turns out to be the Eiffel Tower. When they get out of the car near the base, Castle tells the driver they'll be back shortly.

Kate tips her head all the way back. "Geez, Castle, are you sure it's still open?"

"Yup, I checked. Come on. I think we'll get the last elevator ride up."

They spend a few minutes strolling around the top, looking at the city in every direction. "I have to say, this was worth it, Castle. Even if we have to go right back down in a second. In fact—" she turns her head left and right— "where is everyone?"

"I tipped the elevator guy to let us stay up here a bit longer."

"You tipped the elevator guy? How the hell much money did you give him?"

"Worth every penny." He stops and captures her hand. "How do you like our tour of the monuments of Paris so far, Kate?"

"So far, I'd say the experience is monumental."

"You would?" He's looking dreamy as he leans in and kisses her. "Monumental, huh?"

"Yes," she says, beginning to feel quite dreamy herself.

"I'm glad," he says, dropping to one knee and opening a little box. "Because I have a monumental question. Will you marry me?"

TBC

 **A/N** The hotel (and the suite!) and the restaurant are all real.


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** There's another little foray into M territory in this chapter. If you want to skip it, stop reading after the paragraph about her leaving him breathless, and pick up again at the paragraph that begins, "When they wake up, it's really too late for breakfast."

Even in the dim light he can see how pale she is, and that she's shaking. Her eyes, which are big under ordinary circumstances—and there's nothing ordinary about this—are enormous. She thrusts her right arm out to the side, as if she were trying to grab on to something to restore her balance, but there's only air.

"What?"

"Will you marry me, Kate?"

"Are you sure you're not mixed up?" She's flung her left arm over her chest. "I mean, that you haven't mixed me up with someone else?"

"No. I'm not mixed up. I want to marry you."

"Me? Beckett?"

"You, Beckett."

"Really?"

"How about if I say your whole name, which I now know, thanks to your passport?" She looks like some magnificent woodland creature who has just encountered a human for the first time and doesn't know quite what to do. So he smiles encouragingly, takes the ring from the box, holds it up to her, and quietly asks, "Katherine Houghton Beckett, will you marry me?"

She sits down hard on the grubby platform where 20,000 pairs of sneakers, sandals, boots, and shoes have whirled and scuffed and leapt and stopped today. And then she throws herself forward with such force that he's flat on his back with her on top of him, the ring safe in a death grip in his hand. "Yes," she says against his cheek, "yes, I will." And she kisses him. "Yes."

He's kissing her back, one hand caressing the soft skin between her shoulder blades that her dress has left bare, the other clutching the ring, when he hears a cough. Then another cough, a bit louder than the first.

"Monsieur?" The tentative voice is about fifteen feet away. "Monsieur? Madame?"

Castle breaks away from the kiss, turns his head and sees an obviously embarrassed young man. The recipient of his keep-the-place-open-for-a-few-minutes bribe is standing in the light that's coming through the open doors.

"Kate, Kate. Sorry, I'm sorry. We have to get up. The elevator guy is here."

"Oh, oh." They scramble up, a tangle of legs and arms, and she dusts off her skirt. " _Bonsoir, monsieur,_ " she says to the young man, as she she takes Castle's hand. She gives him a little tug, and they stroll together to the elevator as if this were any summer night anywhere on the planet. They ride down in silence, and when they get out Kate gives the man her very best smile. " _Merci mille fois_."

" _De rien, madame_."

Their car is waiting, and as soon as they're safely installed in the back seat she buries her face in his neck. "I didn't know what to think, Castle. No one ever proposed to me before."

"And I hope no one ever will again." He tilts her face up so he can kiss her thoroughly, or at least as thoroughly as he can given the seat belts and the bumpy streets and a driver who is sneaking as many looks as he can in the rear-view mirror. Castle finally breaks away. "Give me your hand, Kate, so I can put the ring on. Otherwise I'm not sure I'll believe that you said yes."

"I did. I did say yes." She nuzzles his neck again, and offers him her left hand, pulling the fingers just slightly apart, and watches as he slides the ring on. "It's gorgeous. But it's so huge."

"Wait, it doesn't fit? No problem, we'll get it sized as soon as we're back in New York."

"No, no, it's a perfect fit. I meant the diamond's huge."

He kisses her fingertips and says, "Looks just right to me."

She puts their hands on her lap. "When did you even have time to buy this?"

"Oh, I had plenty of time," he says, and laughs.

"You did? How? We've been together almost all the time since, you know."

"Since the doughnut?"

"Yeah." He can see her blush, even in the dark.

"Kate, I bought it on October twenty-fifth."

Her mouth opens, closes, and opens again. "But that—that was. You mean last fall? That's almost a year ago."

"I know. It was the day after we closed the case of the doctor who switched his sick baby for a healthy one. Seeing the way you were with the father when he was reunited with his little boy, and how you were with the doctor's wife—it made my heart stop. And then Paula called to tell me about the contract for more Nikki Heat books and you threatened to kill me, not for the first time. But your eyes weren't threatening at all."

"They were, too."

"That's what you think. By then I'd learned to read you pretty well. Thing is, my heart stopped when I looked at you then, too. And when I got home I made an appointment at Van Cleef and Arpels so I could be ready with a ring as soon as I had the nerve to propose."

She looks down at it again, her eyes almost as wide as they had been a few moments ago, on top of the Eiffel Tower. "This is from Van Cleef and Arpels? It was, um. That was."

Silence. In the long silence, he sees her swallow, sees her eyes fill, and so he cradles her hand in his palm. "It was the place that inspired your mother's favorite ballet, _Jewels_. You told me about that when we were on a stake out a few months before. It was so freaking hot and we couldn't turn on the A/C." A tear rolls into the curved space between his thumb and index finger, and another follows. "Hey, hey, don't cry. You're not supposed to be crying when we've been engaged for five minutes."

"You remembered that? About _Jewels_? I can't believe it."

"Oh, I remembered. At first I thought it was going to be boring, when you talked about the choreographer—"

"Balanchine."

"Right, Balanchine, thank you. How he was so blown away by visiting Van Cleef and Arpels that he did a ballet about diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. But that fascinated me, that kind of inspiration. And you were so animated about it. And then you talked about how your mother took you to see _Jewels_ when you were a little girl. You should have seen your face. You got to go backstage and meet the ballerina who was in the 'Diamonds' part of the ballet."

She nods. "Merrill Ashley."

"Was that the ballerina? I confess that my memory didn't include her name."

"I got her autograph." Kate wipes her free hand across her eyes to push away the tears. "Still have it," she adds, and smiles. "It's in a box at my dad's cabin. After my apartment was bombed I realized that it was there and I was so relieved. That was a really, really important moment in my childhood, Castle."

"I could tell. That's why I got your diamond where I did."

She's still and quiet for a bit, and then she squeezes his hand. "You know what?"

"What?"

Her voice is sultry and very low as she slides her hand down the inside of his thigh. "I can't wait to get into bed with you." The car suddenly slows. Shit, did the driver hear her?

Castle has no time to respond, because the driver is announcing that they're at the hotel.

When they're back upstairs and unlock the door to their suite, Kate gasps. "There are lights on in the bedroom. Oh my God, the maid's been here."

"So?"

"So, the bed," she groans, covering her face. "The way we left it. Oh God oh God oh God oh God."

"Calm down," he says, walking through the sitting room. "This is France. I'm sure she's seen much worse." He peeks around the doorframe. "See? She left us chocolates on our pillows, so how bad could we have been?"

Kate's pressing herself against him now. "Oh, very bad, Castle. Do you not remember?"

"I do. I definitely do."

"But not as bad as we're about to be," she says, grabbing him by the belt.

"Really? And you call _me_ a perv?"

The ring must transmit some kind of superpower, because she gets his clothes off him almost without his knowing it, and in what seems to be seconds. When he ties to unzip her dress she slaps his hand away. "I'm faster." Fast, huh? Oh, it's going to be one of those.

But it's not. It's slow. Excruciatingly, tantalizingly, magnificently slow. She works him up from head to toe—literally, toe—and back. Every time he thinks he can put a stop to it, she switches both tactics and directions. What she can do with breath alone leaves him—and he's so addled now that any but the most basic vocabulary has abandoned him—breathless.

She may be flexible and wily and inventive and surprising and strong, but he's stronger. "We're both wet all over, Kate," he says, flipping her onto her back and pinning her down, his knees astride her thighs. "I can't take it anymore. I'm about to explode."

"Thank God," she says, "because you can't imagine how ready I am to be the explodee."

"I don't think that's a word."

"Explode into me," she says digging a heel into his back, "and I'll show you exactly what kind of a word it is."

"You know," he says later. "I was going to request the Arc de Triomphe, but I think I'll have to wait a while for that."

"Well, Castle, speaking of that." She's still breathing hard. "You did remind me of the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde just now. The obelisk in the summer sun."

"I did, huh." He reaches over and begins to fondle her breast, which is still flushed.

"You did. Firm, hot, erect, towering, endlessly monumental." She's rolling towards him and suddenly stops. "Ouch!"

He pulls back his hand. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, did I hurt you?"

"No, I just rolled over onto something." She props herself up on one arm and runs her hand over the sheet. "Holy fuck," she says, holding the something up in her hand. "We melted the chocolate." She crawls on top of him like a jungle cat. "You know what I'm going to do with this?"

"What?" he asks weakly if expectantly, as he watches her remove the silvery paper and begin to slide down his stomach.

"I'm going to wrap it around you, and lick it off."

"Sweetest thing I've ever heard, Kate."

Some time later—her warm hand and even warmer mouth having left him incapable of calculating time—she pops her head up. "Sweetest thing I've ever eaten, Castle." At that they both explode, this time in laughter, and they fall asleep, probably still laughing.

When they wake up, it's really too late for breakfast, especially since Kate is taking them somewhere she loves for lunch, but while Castle's in the bathroom she calls room service for coffee. They drink it in bed, propped up against the head board, but falling against each other.

"How do you like being engaged so far?" he asks.

"So far? So far it's perfect. It's just—."

"Just what?" He sits up straight, worry transforming his face. "Don't tell me you're regretting this. I know it must have seemed sudden, but please, please don't say that."

"Of course not. No, no. It's just, are we crazy? We've barely dated, we kind of blew by dating."

"I think we blew a lot of things."

"Castle! I'm serious."

"I know. Listen, Kate, so we skipped dating. But we didn't really, except in the traditional sense. And why should we be traditional? There's nothing traditional about our relationship except that I love you and—"

"And I love you."

"So, don't you think, looking back, that we we've really kind of dating all along? Flirting, jealousy, everything?"

"You were so jealous of Will. And Demming, oh man."

"How about you and Kyra?"

"I was not."

"Oh, please. The surveillance camera photos of me kissing her on that roof? I thought you were going to kill me."

"Might have wanted to kill her, actually."

"See?"

"Okay."

He puts his cup on the nightstand and checks his watch. "What time is our reservation?"

"One."

"I hate to say it, but it's after eleven, so we should get up. And we should take our suitcases with us to the restaurant, and go to the airport from there."

All the air whooshes out of her lungs. "You're right. We should. Dammit."

"Kate," he leans over and kisses her shoulder. "This is just the beginning, you know. What do you say? Want to take a shower with me? And then we can dress and pack."

"Okay. But no monkey business in there, we don't have time."

"Monkey business? You're the monkey, the way you can climb—"

"Yeah, yeah, banana man. You know what, maybe if we're fast we can monkey around just a little."

While they're showering, she sings and hums. It's the same song, but sometimes she uses the words, and sometimes not. He loves listening to her, and when she comes to the end, he misses it. "What is that? It's so familiar."

"Another Edith Piaf song, one of her most famous. ' _Je ne regrette rien_ '."

"Tell me the last part you did, I really loved that."

 _Non, je ne regrette rien  
_ _Car ma vie, car mes joies  
_ _Aujourd'hui, ça commence avec toi._

"It's exactly the way I feel right now, Castle."

"And how is that?"

 _No! I regret nothing_  
 _Because my life, my joys_  
 _Today, they begin with you._

He finds that he can't say anything, but he hopes that his eyes tell her. When they're drying off he picks up her ring, which she had put on a shelf for safekeeping. "Don't forget this."

"As if," she says, and puts it on her finger. "I wish I could wear nothing but this, for the rest of my life."

TBC

 **A/N** This is not the end of their discussion about getting engaged, just the end of this chapter. Thank you all, very much!


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

The moment they walk through the door of Brasserie Flo, Castle understands why Kate chose it. The restaurant has been at the same site for almost a century, and though it looks nothing like her apartment instantly brings it to mind. There are old painted ceilings laced with polished wooden beams; stained glass; brass rails, rich colors.

"I saved up so I could come here once when I was a student," she says, squeezing his hand. "It's not wildly expensive, but it was way out of my league then. This time I don't have to skip dessert or have just one glass of the house red."

"May I have dessert?"

"You may. Two desserts, if you want."

"And a glass of very fancy wine?"

"Absolutely. My treat." She's feeling giddy and she hasn't had a drop to drink yet.

He's about to respond when the maître d' appears and Kate unleashes a rapid-fire and enthusiastic stream of French, not a word of which Castle understands. Whatever it was, it obviously pleased the tuxedoed host, who escorts them to the best table in the restaurant, pulls Kate's chair out for her, and bows.

Castle hasn't opened his menu. Instead, he's looking at her looking at hers. "Aren't you hungry?" she asks.

"Starving. But I'm leaving the ordering up to you. Surprise me." He can see how pleased she is, as her cheeks pink and her eyes gleam. When the waiter returns she delivers another spirited bit of French and Castle thinks he hears "langoustines" swimming around somewhere in the order. Those skinny lobsters that he loves. Excellent.

The food is as beautifully presented as it is delicious, but Castle is distracted even while he eats. The place is filled with light: sun comes through the windows and windowed doors, and mirrors reflect it as well as the lamps. Every time Kate moves her hand the diamond sparkles as it catches the light, which in turn catches his heart. He still can't believe it. That ring had been locked in his desk for so long, and for every moment he'd thought they might be eventually a couple he'd had ten when he'd been afraid that they wouldn't. Still, even if the odds had been 50 times worse, he'd have hung on to hope. He'd have hung on until they were old and gray, except now they're going to get old and gray together. But not for a very long time. They're going to have a long time together.

"Castle?"

"Huh?"

"Are you all right? Do you want to try something else?"

"No, no. It's perfect."

"But you're plate's still half full and mine's licked clean—"

"You licked your plate?" He's stunned. "How did I miss that?"

"Figure of speech, Castle. But I worry when I eat twice as much as you do."

"You said yes."

"I said yes?"

He nods vigorously.

"About what?"

"About getting married. I proposed to you and you said yes. I'm still—I'm still. It's still sinking in."

He'd thought he'd been dazzled by the light bouncing off her ring, but it's lusterless next to the smile she gives him. "Still sinking in for you, huh? It was a total surprise for me, you know, but apparently you'd been thinking of it for ages, right through Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Martin Luther King Day, Groundhog Day, Presidents' Day, Easter, Fourth of July." She knows, even as she ticks off these holidays, that she's omitting Memorial Day. That one is too painful to bring up, even now.

"You forgot the most important one."

Oh, shit, he noticed. "I did?"

"Valentine's Day. That was really tough."

No, he hadn't noticed! Or maybe Memorial Day is too painful for him to bring up, too. "It was? I don't even remember last Valentine's Day. I probably ate leftover Chinese food at home."

"Remember the Cano Vega case?"

"Sure. Murdered baseball star."

"We ran into Joe Torre and I introduced you. You were completely flustered, tongue-tied. Nearly fell over your own feet. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen. I never knew that side of you, Kate, never knew it was hiding underneath that cool-as-can-be Beckett, and it made me love you even more. The Sunday after we closed that case was Valentine's Day and I wanted to show up at your door with a big chocolate heart and a teddy bear wearing a little Yankee hat."

"Would that have been a melted chocolate heart?"

That makes him chuckle. "Might have been."

She leans forward and looks at him with so much love that he can hardly breathe. "If I'd opened my door on February fourteenth and seen you like that, my heart would have melted, right there. You melt my heart, Castle, all the time. You know that, right?"

Since he doesn't want to cry in the middle of lunch in the middle of the restaurant in the middle of Paris, he just nods his head and reaches for her hand, picks it up, turns it over, and kisses her palm.

She can see that he's holding back tears, and understands why, so she switches to a lighter mode. "Castle? Eat your lunch. I don't want it to go to waste, and we're not getting on that plane with a doggy bag."

So he does finish his lunch, and dessert. And most of her dessert. Kate pays the bill and while she has two more chats—one with the waiter, one with the maître d'–he wonders why everything in French sounds so sexy. Or maybe it's just her speaking French, a potent combination. On the way out he shakes hands with the waiter and the maître d' and says " _Merci beaucoup_ " in what he thinks is a reasonably good accent.

"I'm so happy that you liked this place, Castle," she says as they get into the waiting car.

"I did. Thank you for taking me there."

"Thank you for taking me here."

They hold hands all the way to the airport, but they don't say a word.

Once they've checked in they wheel their bags to the first-class lounge; it's going to be late when they land at JFK, and they don't want to wait around there, either, since they have to be at the precinct early in the morning. He could beg off, but she can't.

"I'll be back in a minute," he says, after they've had coffee.

"Okay."

Ten minutes pass, and he's not back. She'd assumed he'd gone to the men's room, but now she begins to fret. She waits five more minutes. No dice. No Castle. Now she really is worried. She walks to the bathrooms and stands outside until a man comes out, and asks him if anyone else is inside. He says no.

Twenty minutes, and she's almost frantic. She clicks on her phone to call him when she sees him, plastic bag in hand, coming her way. "Geez, Castle, I was beginning to panic. You went shopping? I should have known."

"Yeah."

"But we were just in one of the shopping paradises of the world. Oh, wait, you got a cheesy airport present for Alexis. Or your mother?"

"Nope, I got something for you."

"A cheesy airport present for me? Why?"

"Because I didn't buy you anything in Paris."

She waves her left hand in front of his face. "Remember this? I'm pretty sure a huge diamond counts as a present."

"But I didn't buy it here. It can't be a souvenir of Paris if I bought it in New York."

"This engagement ring is the most incredible souvenir of Paris ever. And you gave it to me on the Eiffel Tower. How much more Parisian can you get?"

"Technically I gave it to you in the car. You almost knocked it out of my hand on the Eiffel Tower. Anyway, I owe you a present from our trip. I'm sorry it's not wrapped. Seems wrong to me. I mean, if you call yourself a gift shop you should damn well have gift wrap."

"Castle? I don't mind." She puts her hand in the bag and pulls out the present: a white tee shirt with red and black lettering.

J'AIME PARIS.

"You could wear it as a nightgown, Kate."

"I will. Thank you. I'll wear it to bed as soon as we get home tonight, and you can unwrap me."

"God, I wish you hadn't said that. We won't be home for at least ten hours, and I'll have to wait all that time with that vision in my brain."

A few hours into the long flight home, Kate says abruptly, "I have to tell the Captain about us."

"What? Montgomery?"

"We have to tell him some time, Castle. He's the one I'm most worried about, because you and I are not supposed to be dating."

"I thought that we established that we're not dating."

"Right. We're engaged, which is a giant step past dating. And I don't want us not to be able to work together, do you?"

"No. But if I have to choose between working with you and marrying you, there's no choice at all."

"I want us to do both."

"I do, too. Can't we just keep it secret for now? At least that way we can be together at the precinct for a while, anyway."

"First of all, it would mean lying to Montgomery, or at least hiding something from him, which in this case is a really bad idea. I may have been able to keep my feelings secret from the boys for a couple of days, but that was my limit, and it was hard. And now? No way. I don't want one of us slipping up at he precinct, which is bound to happen, and have that be how he finds out. I'm hoping that he'll let you stay for a while."

"Kate, I'm not a cop, as you like to remind me. So shouldn't we be exempt from that rule?"

"That's what I'm banking on, but I don't know how much rule-bending we can do."

She's quiet after that, looking out the window as she holds his hand. At some point she's aware that he's no longer awake, and she turns her head towards him. He's canted slightly towards her, eyes closed, a sweet expression on his face. Maybe he's dreaming. She's noticed, in the short time that they've been together, that he's a napper, a really good napper. He can fall asleep for twenty minutes and be completely refreshed. She wonders if it's because he's a writer, or because he raised a child on his own. A child. Alexis. Oh, God, how is Alexis going to react to all this? Kate's ashamed that she hasn't even thought about it. What kind of a future stepmother doesn't consider that right away? They haven't even set a wedding date and she's already a cruel stepmother. At least she doesn't have to worry about Martha, knows they'll have her blessing.

It gnaws and gnaws on her, and she feels all the joy and warmth of the last two days slipping away. "Castle. Castle." She shakes his knee. "Wake up. Please."

He's coming out of a surprisingly deep sleep—maybe not so surprising, since they've slept very little in the last two days. The tone of her voice worries him; when he opens his eyes and sees her face, he's alarmed. "What's wrong?"

"I'm a horrible person."

"A horrible person? What?"

"I didn't think about Alexis until you were napping. How is she going to feel about me barging into your life? Why didn't I ask you that the minute you proposed? I'm stealing her father."

"Kate, Kate, Kate." He kisses her softly. "You're not stealing her father. You're not barging into our life. She adores you. And if you'd asked me about Alexis right after I'd proposed, I'd have been shocked. Appalled. Insulted. You shouldn't be thinking about my teenaged daughter while we're kissing on the top of the Eiffel Tower, okay?"

"But. But you have to tell her as soon as we get back. You have to go down to Princeton and tell her, you can't call."

"I already did."

"You called her? Castle, no!" She covers her face with her hands. "You should have told her in person. I feel terrible."

"I did tell her in person. The first day I didn't come in the precinct? I wasn't at home. I drove down to New Jersey, took her to lunch, and told her everything. Well, not everything. The PG-13 version. And I told her I was going to take you to Paris and ask you to marry me. I practically had to tie her down to keep her from calling you and spilling the beans. She squealed so loud the waiter dropped our sodas on the floor."

"So she doesn't mind?"

"Doesn't mind? She's ecstatic."

"That's in the abstract. She doesn't know I said yes."

"She does. I called her when I was buying the shirt. You'll have an email waiting for you when we get home, full of exclamation points and smiley faces."

"Really?"

"I promise. Do you feel better now?"

"Yes."

"So you won't mind if I go back to my nap?"

"I won't mind."

He sleeps for a long time, but she can't. Her mind is racing. She thinks about the depths of her unhappiness just a few weeks ago, and how she feels now. It's wildly improbable. Impossible. But it happened. She leans against him, feels his breathing shift for a moment, then even out, but not before he takes her hand again. And they sit like that, one of them asleep, one of them awake, and the awake one lets a song unspool in her mind.

 _Just in time,_  
 _I found you just in time,_  
 _Before you came my time_  
 _Was running low._

She runs her hand lightly across his cheek. His eyes move a fraction, but he doesn't really stir.

 _Now you're here,_  
 _And now I know just where I'm going,_  
 _No more doubt or fear,_  
 _I've found my way._  
 _For love came just in time,_  
 _You found me just in time,_  
 _And changed my lonely life_  
 _That lovely day._

 **A/N** _Merci_. Or, now that they're about to land in the U.S.A., thank you, readers.


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Kate wakes up at dawn, curled on her right side, and looks blearily at the phone to check the time. She can just see her Paris airport tee shirt lying on the floor, and smiles at the memory of its removal a few hours ago. But why is she so warm? Much warmer than she should be, given that she's naked and her brand-new air conditioner is humming efficiently in the window.

Someone just licked the back of her thigh, licked a long, wet path that wound up and around to her hip. Someone who's completely hidden under the sheets. Someone with an ass that's now very, very familiar to her, even out of view, even when covered. "Castle! Stop it."

"Stop it?" His voice is slightly muffled, until he pokes his head out and looks at her. "Just the other day in bed you said to me, 'I will never, ever again ask you to hold your tongue'."

"Is this how it's going to be every morning from now on?"

"I certainly hope so. Or is that a complaint? Because you weren't complaining when I did this in Paris."

"Yes, I mean no. Yes. Fuck, Castle, I have to get up and go to work." It takes considerable self-restraint for her to leave the bed and then to keep him at arm's length while they're in the shower, especially since her shower is very small and he is very big.

After they're both dressed and having a cup of coffee she looks with alarm at her left hand. "What am I going to do about my ring?"

"Leave it here," he says, as if the ring were insignificant. As if it were a scarf or a pair of gloves.

"I don't want to leave it here. I don't want to take it off."

He takes her hand and closely examines her finger. "You could put a Band-Aid over it," he suggests.

"It would take an entire box of Band-Aids to cover this. Oh, wait, I have an idea. It's perfect." She walks to the bedroom, with Castle trailing after her, and opens a small box on the top of her dresser. After withdrawing a chain, she unclasps it, removes her ring and slips it on the chain next to her mother's ring. "How's this?" she asks, tucking it inside her blouse.

"Beautiful." He kisses her soundly.

"Let's go," she says, wiping her lipstick off him. "Montgomery always comes in early on Monday and I want to talk to him before anyone else gets in."

When they step out of the elevator at the precinct, half an hour ahead of shift, they find an empty bullpen and their boss in his office. His door is open, and Kate knocks on the frame. "Morning, Captain."

"Morning, Beckett," he says, looking up from his paperwork. "Oh, and Castle. What brings you in at this hour? You don't usually trail in here with coffee for your partner until at least nine o'clock."

"That's sort of what we're here about, sir," she says nervously.

"About coffee?"

"No. Uh, could we talk to you for a moment?"

"Of course. Park yourselves right there on those chairs."

"Thank you." She sits on the edge, and starts running her index finger under the slim gold chain. "Captain, we. Uh, we, Castle and I."

"Spit it out, Detective." He pretends to glower from above his perfectly knotted tie.

"We—we wanted you to know that we're dating."

Castle looks sideways at her. "We're not dating."

"Didn't you two get your story straight before coming to see me? Seems like a pretty simple thing. You're dating or you're not dating, pick one."

Kate is stunned that he sounds neither surprised nor annoyed. "We are, yes. I mean we did." She's trying hard to make sense. "There was no story to get straight, sir. It's worse than that."

"Worse?" Castle squeaks indignantly.

"Not worse, worse. Worse like, it's beyond dating."

Montgomery points his pen at her. "Stop right there. Let me see if I can cut to the chase for you. I've been around a long time, and I think I've got this figured out. You say you're not dating, you're beyond dating. So to me that means one of two things." He holds up two fingers. "You moved in together or you're getting married."

The couple, for perhaps the first time ever, is struck speechless.

"How'm I doing, Beckett? Castle?"

Her recovery time is quicker than his. "It's the latter, sir. We're engaged. Castle proposed to me this weekend and I said yes and here's the ring." She pulls the chain from behind her blouse and holds it up. "And I know it's against departmental rules, but Castle isn't officially a member of the department, I mean he doesn't even have a carry permit or anything even though he's an incredible member of the team and so I guess I'm going out on a limb here sir but shouldn't it be all right for us to date—"

"You're not dating, you're engaged."

"Right, that's right. Well, shouldn't it be okay if we're engaged and then married and shouldn't it make no difference since Castle doesn't get paid for working here so that means he definitely isn't an employee of the NYPD so I think he shouldn't have to stop being here at the precinct when he does such amazing work on our cases, don't you? And I know you like him and think he does a good job, and our closure rate is way up. Please, sir?"

"I have one question, and it's for both of you."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"What took you so damn long?"

They're gobsmacked again.

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Look, you were so busy repressing your feelings—well, Beckett was—that I probably saw this coming before you did. Right from the start. But I can tell you when I was absolutely sure."

"Sure about what?" Beckett says. Castle simply nods.

"That you'd get together. It was inevitable. I may be old enough to be your father, Kate—not yours, Castle, but old enough to be your big brother—but I know chemistry, magnetism, whatever name you want to give it, when I see it. And I knew it as well as I know my kids' names, two months in. Two months after Castle joined us." He looks back and forth between the couple, who are gaping again. "It was the poker games," he says matter-of-factly.

"Poker game?" Beckett looks confused. "There was absolutely nothing going on between us back then."

"Games, plural. And there was something going on between you, even if you couldn't admit it to yourself. We were playing poker at Castle's just before the call came in for that woman who was drowned in motor oil, remember?"

They answer yes in unison, without noticing.

"Castle folded. He had the pot, no question, and threw the game to you, Beckett. And a couple of nights later, when we played again? You did the same thing. You handed the pot to Castle's when it was yours, fair and square. That's love, folks. No question."

"I'll be damned," Castle says.

"So, I apologize for not having said it already, but congratulations, you two. I've been rooting for you from the start." He smiles widely. "You're right, Beckett, the rules don't apply here. You and Castle can continue to work together. Hell, the two of you can get married in the precinct if you want, though I can't imagine why you would. In a couple of years I expect to see both of you walk off the elevator on Bring Your Child to Work Day, with a little Beckett-Castle tagging along." He gets up and walks around the desk to her chair. "You gonna give me a hug, or what?"

She does, so hard that he clutches his ribs after she lets go.

"Strong woman you got there," he says, shaking Castle's hand. "One thing though. You know what I said about being old enough to be your big brother? If you ever, ever give Beckett any grief, I will be the baddest-ass brother you ever saw. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, don't you have some work to do?"

"Thank you, Captain," Beckett says. "One more favor? We want to tell the others a little later, so if we could keep this just between us for a while?"

"My lips are closed tighter than a clam dipped in sealing wax. Nobody's gonna hear it from me. Now get out of here, lovebirds."

The lovebirds flutter to the break room. "Oh, my God, can you believe it, Castle?" She's clutching his hand and smiling so hard that her cheeks are pushed up almost to her eyes. "All that worry for nothing."

"You make a persuasive argument." He looks around to make sure that the coast is clear, and gives her a quick but passionate kiss. "Calls for a celebration, don't you think?"

"I do," she says quietly. "But not here. Go get some coffee, but don't come back until your usual time, okay? I'll call if we get a case."

"I guess I can find some way to entertain myself for an hour or two."

"I guess you can," she says, settling in at her desk with a stack of files. But minutes after he leaves she's overcome with a need to talk to Martha. It's much too early to call her Castle's mother, and it's her day off from the theater, but it occurs to Kate that she might even be at the loft. She might have come to the city to see friends or go to a museum or do some shopping. It's hard to believe that so little time has passed since she texted Martha late at night from her sweltering apartment. Everything has changed. Everything. It's magical. She's going to text again, hoping that the result is as good as it was that night.

"Hi, Martha. By any chance are you in NYC today? If so, are you free for dinner? I'd love to see you. Katherine"

It's only after she hits send that she's aware of having signed herself Katherine. Huh, she thinks, Martha's influence. It's almost like a pet name. Families have pet names. Martha's going to be family. Wow.

Ryan arrives not long after and they exchange the usual pleasantries of colleagues and friends. She tells him that she and Castle had a great weekend, adroitly omitting both the location and the main event. Espo is still on vacation and Lanie has taken a few days off to go to her cousin's bachelorette party in Orlando, which takes a lot of pressure off her. She breathes easy, and then the phone rings: there's a body.

Since Castle is only a block away, Beckett and Ryan pick him up on the way to the scene. "Perlmutter," Ryan groans as they slip under the yellow tape, while his two comrades inwardly rejoice. The ME's snideness is infinitely preferable to the gimlet eye of one Dr. Parish.

Unlike their last case, this one is routine, or as routine as a homicide can be: a cuckolded husband exacts revenge on his wife by choking the life out of her. "She didn't deserve to keep breathing, the bitch," he says, by way of explanation. "I had my rights."

"And my rights are to send you out of here with a charge of murder, Mister Kerrigan," Beckett says in disgust, as the 30-year-old as led away. She's only grateful that he has no children. Castle has offered to get lunch for the three of them, and she checks her phone. Martha has replied and yes, she's in town at the loft, and yes, she'd like to have dinner. Beckett sends a reply.

"How about my apartment? At 6? I'm not much of a cook but we could call out if you don't mind that. I can offer you some excellent wine."

"Sounds delightful, and as I'm no gourmet chef either, takeout is just fine. I'm dying to see your nest."

Beckett texts her the address, and when Castle returns with sandwiches she tells him her plan. "I can call for Thai, or Italian."

"You doing paperwork this afternoon?"

"Yeah. And I know you won't be."

"So how about I cook for us? I'll have to buy every single ingredient, because my guess is that you have salt and pepper and that's about it."

"I have soy sauce," she answers primly. "And chicken noodle soup."

"In a can, Beckett." He shudders. "A can. And it's probably dented and past its sell-by date."

When she steps through her door at 5:30, carrying two very pricey bottles of wine and a 99-cent bottle of seltzer, the first thing that hits her is the smell of pasta sauce. The second is the sight of Castle, stirring a pot with a kind of happy concentration. He hasn't heard her. The love in it, the whole domesticity of it, make her eyes fill up. She puts down her bags, pulls off her shoes, and tiptoes into the kitchen. When she presses her forehead between his shoulder blades and wraps her arms around his waist he puts down his spoon. He begins to turn around and she says, "Stay there, Castle. Just stay the way you were." And then she begins to sing, a little wobbly because she's feeling so emotional. Her cheek is resting against his back.

 _If I could save time in a bottle,  
The first thing that I'd like to do  
Is to save every day till eternity passes away  
Just to spend them with you._

 _If I could make days last forever,  
If words could make wishes come true,  
I'd save every day like a treasure and then  
Again, I would spend them with you,_

When she finishes, he's still and silent for a long time. And then he says, "Me, too, Kate. Me, too."

"I need a Kleenex," she says.

"Makes two of us."

"Your mother's going to be here in less than half an hour. I'm going to change, okay? And I'll set the table."

"Good." When she's halfway across the living room he calls out to her. "Beckett? I love you."

She turns around. "I love you, too." This is a big night, she thinks later, as she brushes her hair. A very big night.

The doorbell rings at exactly 6:00, and Kate opens the door. "Oh, Martha," she says, ushering in her guest and kissing her on the cheek. "Right on time."

"A guest should never be late, darling. Oh, my, what a charming place. I think if I'd been dropped in here and nobody had told me that it was yours, I'd have known. And what is that delicious smell? I thought we were having takeout?"

That's a cue for Castle, who walks out of the bedroom towards the two women. "Surprise!"

Later, when they're catching up and relaxing over wine, Kate says, "Martha, I want to show you something."

"What's that, dear?"

Kate fishes something out of her pocket, hides it in her fist, and passes it to Castle, who puts the ring on her finger. "This," she says, letting the diamond catch the light.

Martha's hands shoot up to her face. "Is that? Did you?"

"We did, Mother. I said, 'Will you marry me?' and she said, 'Yes'."

A few tears, several hugs and kisses, and a brief explanation later, Kate turns to her future mother-in-law. "This never would have happened without you, Martha. I owe you everything. We both do, really."

"Nonsense. You just needed a good strong push."

"And a coconspirator, I hear," Castle says, now able to laugh at the thought of the Beckett-kicks-Gina's-butt moment.

"Well, I will admit that I did my part well," Martha says, fluttering her eyelashes. She turns her head just then and notices that the table is set for four. "Is someone joining us?"

"My dad," Kate says. "I told him last week that Castle—Rick—and I were seeing each other, and he said he wasn't at all surprised. We wanted to have you both here when we told you our news, but since you were the linchpin in this operation, I insisted to Rick that we let you know first."

"I'm honored."

"But I'm counting on you not to reveal anything to my father. I know firsthand how good an actress you are, so, Mrs. Higgins, if you could act surprised when we make our announcement—"

"I'll give a Tony-award winning performance, I promise. It looks like it's going to be the only way I'll get a Tony, so it will give me enormous pleasure. I assume that you've told Alexis?"

"I went down to Princeton several days ago and told her over lunch that I was going to take Kate to Paris and propose, and I wanted her blessing."

"Which she gave you."

"Which she gave us. She nearly drove me insane on Saturday, texting me every ten minutes until I popped the question. We both talked to her on the phone last night when we got back. She's adorably excited."

There's a knock on the door. "On that note," Kate says, "we'll temporarily suspend this conversation. That must be dad."

Dinner goes both smoothly and happily. "You know, Rick," Jim says, after his last mouthful of fusilli with sausage and tomato sauce, "I used to think that you were the rival for my wife's affections. Many a night your face was looking up at me from Johanna's lap. She read your books over and over. Practically swooned over them. And now it looks like my daughter's doing the swooning, which I can assure you is a new thing for her."

"Dad!"

"See? She still doesn't like me saying things like that to her boyfriend, even though she's a grown woman."

"Um, Dad. About that."

"I'm sorry, Katie."

"No, no, don't apologize. It's fine, it's more than fine. But Dad."

"And Mother."

"We have something to tell you."

"I asked Kate to marry me, and she said yes, even though she wasn't suffering from a concussion or any other brain injury."

All four of them jump up from the table to exchange embraces and exclamations. Martha does, indeed, give a Tony-worthy performance. "Thank you," Kate whispers in her ear in the middle of her umpteenth hug of the evening.

"I think this calls for Champagne," Castle announces. "Which I just happen to have put in Kate's fridge this afternoon."

"Probably the only thing in there except maybe sesame noodles from two months ago," Jim says and chuckles. "Now very fuzzy."

"You know your daughter well, Jim."

"I do."

Castle excuses himself to get the Champagne and glasses and Martha says, "You stay with your father, darling, have a moment with him. I'll help my son."

"Katie," Jim says, anxiety putting an edge on his voice.

"Don't worry, Dad," she assures him. "Yours is sparkling cider."

An hour later, with Jim promising to drop Martha off at the loft, they're all at the door. "I'd say that this surprises me, Rick," Jim says, his eyes lighting up, "but since every conversation that I've had with my daughter in the last year has been to some extent about you, I'm not one bit surprised. Just very pleased."

"I'm going to have to ask her about that."

"See how much she'll confess."

"The same is true of Richard, Jim. Katherine can grill him, too. Good night, you two."

"Night, Mother."

"Night, Dad. Don't give away all of my secrets while you're driving Martha home."

"That was good, wasn't it?" Kate says, collapsing against the door after their parents have left.

"It was. And now you're going to tell me what you've been saying about me to your father all this time."

"Not a chance."

"I'll tickle it out of you."

"Not ticklish, Castle."

"Wanna bet?" He traps her against the wall and wiggles his fingers. "You have no idea how talented I am in the tickling department."

"Oh, God."

TBC

A/N Thank you all again. We're heading towards the finish line now.


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

The work week is relatively uneventful, relatively being a key modifier when it comes to New York City homicide detectives. On Tuesday morning, Beckett, Castle, and Ryan—Espo is still on vacation—are called to the scene of what turns out not to be murder but an unfortunate combination of clumsiness and stupidity that resulted in death. With no other bodies falling, Montgomery takes advantage of the lull by putting the team on cold cases; they make some inroads without cracking anything open.

"Castle," she says groggily in bed on Wednesday night, sprawled over her fiancé with the sweat still evaporating from her naked body. "We have to tell Lanie and Espo."

"Why, Beckett," he says, pulling her face up from his chest so he can look into her eyes. "I never took you for a kiss-and-tell woman. You're planning on letting our friends know what we just did? It might take a little explaining, especially that one part. Diagramming. Visual aids."

"If I had any strength at the moment, I'd swat you for that."

"Ooh, kinky."

"Nothing kinky about it, buster," she says, and nips his nipple. "I meant we have to tell them about us. Ryan's been really great about it, but Lanie will be back tomorrow and Espo on Monday and he shouldn't have to keep the secret."

Castle winds a wavy strand of her hair around his finger. "I sense a suggestion coming."

"Glad your senses are working, though I was kind of hoping I knocked them out of you just now."

"You did, almost completely. That's why I'm waiting for your suggestion instead of making one. I'm a very suggestive guy."

She wiggles until she's comfortably plastered against him. "Dinner. Here. Sunday night. Ryan, Jenny, Lanie, Espo. You could invite them—and me. Say you want to thank us for welcoming you back. And then we'll tell them."

"When?"

"I dunno. Over dessert, I guess."

"You're going to have to stay away from me during dinner, then. And before. Lest your wandering hands reveal anything."

"My wandering hands? What about yours? One of which just wandered south."

"You want it to wander back north?"

"God, no. I want it to explore, right where it is."

"Okay then," he says, flipping her onto her back and rolling over to settle between her legs. "Just think of me as Roald Amundsen. Except the southern region that he explored was very, very cold, and this is very, very hot."

The next morning she goes into the precinct alone—they're still trying to keep up appearances—and he follows a few hours later with a tray of coffees and a bag full of pastries.

"Morning, Detectives," he says, as he offers a cup to Beckett. "Ryan? Want to join us over here? I brought high-calorie treats. And a cappuccino, which I believe is your favorite."

"Hey, thanks, Castle. What's up?" He looks into the bakery bag and takes out an almond croissant. "You buttering us up for something?"

"Despite the vast quantity of butter in these, no. I have an invitation."

"Really?" Beckett asks with convincing innocence. "To what?"

"Dinner. At my place, Sunday night. You two and Jenny and Esposito—he is coming back, isn't he? Hasn't run off to join Miami Vice or something? And Lanie."

"This a special occasion, Castle?" Beckett takes a bite of a brioche, chews contemplatively, and swallows. "Isn't your birthday on April Fool's Day? Too late for that."

Castle lowers his head as if he were looking for the right thing to say, then raises it. "I want to thank you for welcoming me back, and not torturing me about Gina, which God knows you could have done. So, can you come?"

"I'm in," Ryan says. "I'm sure Jenny is, too. Javi's coming home Friday night. You can text him."

"Me, too, Castle. That's really nice of you. I'm having lunch with Lanie today. Want me to ask her?" As if they hadn't already planned this.

"That'd be great. Thanks, Beckett."

"So, you going to help Ryan and me with these cold cases?"

"I guess."

"Well, Mister Enthusiasm, would it help you to know that there's no paperwork involved?"

"Yeah, Castle. Plus there's one case with a guy who was tied up to look like a roast pig with an apple in his mouth."

"What kind of apple?"

"I have no idea," Beckett says. "Maybe you could make that your first order of business. Find out what the apple was. Macintosh, red delicious, Fuji."

"It could be important," Castle says, and sniffs.

When they break for lunch three hours later, Castle—who has not yet isolated the type of apple that the vic's teeth had been gripping—and Ryan head out for a burger and Beckett goes to the local Thai place to meet Lanie.

"Um, Kevin," Castle says, sliding across the pleather bench in the coffee shop. "Listen, if you and Jenny would mind not mentioning to Espo and Lanie about Beckett and me? At dinner? I'd really appreciate it. Kind of awkward, you know?"

"Things going okay with you two, Castle?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, they are. But, early days and everything. And you know Beckett. She likes to keep things to herself."

"No kidding."

"How are things with you and Jenny? Looks pretty serious to me."

"Yeah, it is. Can I tell you something? Swear you to secrecy?"

Castle crosses his heart. "Absolutely."

"She's the one. Really the one."

"Wow, congratulations! You getting married?"

Ryan blanches and puts his hands up. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. No. I mean, I hope so. But I haven't asked her or anything."

"Don't waste a minute. Propose."

"Hey, you've been married twice. Wouldn't you be a little cautious about popping the question?"

"I suppose," Castle says, trusting that the sky will not open and a thunderbolt hurl him to the ground for his lie. He puts two fries in his mouth.

At the same time, four blocks away, his fiancée is also being less than truthful with Lanie.

"You're looking really great, Kate."

"I feel well, thanks."

The doctor waits for her friend to say something else. When she doesn't elaborate, Lanie points her salad fork at her as if it were a scalpel. "That's it? You feel well? You were moping around like a dog without a friend a couple of weeks ago and now you're all bubbly. Not like you. Something happened. Oh, no, no. I've got it. Someone happened. Spill."

"You might be right."

"Might? That means I'm on the button. Who is it? Castle! It's Castle! He came back and you're happy and you finally gave in."

"Oh, please. It's Alexander. Alex."

"Alex? Who is he? Why haven't I heard about him?"

"His mother match made."

Lanie coughs so hard she has to spit her mesclun into her napkin. "His mother? You are desperate, girl."

"Am not."

"So this Alexander Alex. What does he do? Because I can't get into a discussion about his mother, especially not while I'm eating."

"Uh, teaches. He's a teacher." Oh, if Lanie only knew what she'd learned from him in the last couple of weeks. Although she'd taught him plenty, too.

"A teacher? Where?"

Oh, shit, why hadn't she thought this through? Maybe because every time she'd tried her mind had wandered to all the talks they have, and all the laughing, and Paris, and sex. How incredible he smells. How he tells her to open her eyes when—oh, God, don't go there, mind. Don't don't don't.

"Kate?"

"What? Oh. Teaches. He teaches at Stanford, but he's here for the summer. So I think this is just a, you know, a summer fling. Fun while it lasts."

Lanie purses her lips and squints. "Yeah? That's what your mouth is saying, but not your face."

"Oh," Beckett says, trying to get control of the conversation. "Speaking of Castle. This morning he asked Ryan and me to dinner at his loft on Sunday night. He wants you and Jenny and Espo to come, too."

"What's the occasion?"

"That's exactly what I asked him. He said it was just a way to thank us for welcoming him back and not giving him any crap about Gina. He's a great cook. When I stayed there after my apartment blew up he made amazing meals for Alexis and Martha and me. What do you say?"

"I'd never turn down an invitation like that. The wine alone. And that sofa."

Oh, definitely that sofa. She picks up her wine just in time to hide her rapidly flushing cheeks. "Good, we're all set. Now, I want to hear everything about the bachelorette party and all the trouble you caused in Orlando." That's sufficient to steer Lanie away from Castle/Alex, and by the time she's through they both have to return to work. On the way to the precinct, Kate realizes how grateful she is that she has to keep up this charade for only a few more days.

When she wakes up early Sunday morning, she's alone in their bed. Wow. Their bed. She's already calling it their bed, thinking of it as their bed. She sits up, tilting her head towards his office, thinking that he might be writing, but there's no sound coming from it. She doesn't smell coffee, so he's probably not in the kitchen. Where is he?

On tiptoe, she walks out to the living room, and sees him sitting in an armchair by the window. His back is not completely towards her; she can see part of his face. He's holding his phone and smiling at a photo on it. She stays near the doorway for at least two minutes, and he hasn't scrolled to another picture. He's just looking at the same one, and seems oblivious to his surroundings. Tiptoeing again, she comes near enough so that she can she what's captivated him: her. He must have taken it quite a long time ago, because her hair is much shorter. She's sitting at her desk in the precinct with a cup of coffee in one hand and a pencil in the other, and she's laughing. How had he taken that without her realizing it? He's always playing games on his phone; she must have assumed that's what he was doing. Just didn't notice at all. There are times, and this is one of them, when Kate is taken by surprise by how much she loves Castle, and how much she's in love with him. She'd never thought it possible—nor that anyone would ever feel that way about her.

And then he touches the tip of his finger to the tiny image of her, and leaves it there. It's such an intimate gesture that it almost makes her knees buckle.

"Castle," she whispers into the back of his neck, as she puts her arms around him and clasps her hands together in the center of his chest.

He places one of his hands over her two, engulfing them. "This is one of my favorite pictures of you, Kate."

"How come?"

"'cause it was the day I really, truly, one hundred percent permanently fell in love with you. The day before I bought your ring. I wanted to tell you right then, but you would have run from the room and I'd never have seen you again."

"And now you've got me for good. You know it's for good, don't you?"

"I do."

She walks around the chair and sits down on his lap. "Remember our first time?"

"How could I forget? Fifty years from now I'll still remember it."

"Remember you'd fallen asleep and I was humming and it woke you up? You asked what it was, and I said it was an old song about us. I was watching you, a few minutes ago, while you were looking at my picture on your phone, and it made me think of another old song. It's about us, too."

She sings the first verse, so softly that he can hardly hear it.

 _It's very clear  
_ _Our love is here to stay.  
_ _Not for a year, but forever and a day._

Then she starts to hum with her cheek against his heart, and he thinks it might burst through his rib cage. She starts to sing again, a little louder, but still quietly. Even if the room were full of people, the only ones who could hear her would be the two of them.

 _In time the Rockies may crumble,  
_ _Gibraltar may tumble,  
_ _They're only made of clay  
_ _But our love is here to stay._

"That's true," he says, and kisses her.

"In a few hours, everyone will know."

"You sound a little wistful. Are you sorry or glad?"

"That everyone will know? Both. Is that crazy?"

"Nope. We don't have to do it if you're not ready. It can just be dinner."

"I'm ready. I am. It amazes me, but I am."

She's still a little nervous, though. At five-thirty, when she's showered and putting on a little makeup, her trembling hand makes mascara smear on her eyelid, and she has to start over again. Once she repairs it, she goes to see Castle, who's in the kitchen, getting a tray of hors d'oeuvres ready, and she kisses him lightly. "See you in a bit," she says, and walks out the door.

From a little bar across the street she sips on an iced tea and watches everyone arrive: first Kevin and Jenny, then Lanie, and finally Espo. It's safe for her to go back to the loft.

"Hey, Beckett," Castle says, opening the door on her knock and accepting the bottle that she'd removed from the premises less than an hour ago. "Thanks for this."

"Yo, Beckett, you're late," Espo says from behind a piece of crumbling cheese.

"Sorry, sorry. Had to park about ten blocks away. I should've just walked. And now I'm hot." She issues a faux glare to Castle. "Don't say it."

"Who, me? I wasn't going to say anything."

"That'd be a first."

The evening progresses easily, as if a group of friends were getting together for dinner just for the fun of it. Beckett and Castle are at opposite ends of the table, which eliminates the temptation of playing footsie, and each tries to give equal attention to everyone else there.

When Castle announces that it's time for dessert, Beckett offers to clear the table, but he insists that she stay put. "Well, I hope you won't mind if I get up for a moment. All that wine and the prospect of coffee means that I have to make a break for the powder room."

"Be my guest."

"I am," she says over her shoulder, as she strolls away. When she returns, she heads for the kitchen rather than the dining room, and gets Champagne from the fridge. She walks to Castle's end of the table, and gives him the bottle.

"Thanks, Beckett."

"Dom Perignon?" Lanie says, eyebrows shooting up. "You bring that, Kate?"

"Not exactly."

"This girl," Lanie says to the group, shaking her head, "is more non-responsive than ever. How can you 'not exactly' bring something?"

Kate smiles, doesn't respond, and stays where she is.

"Hey, Castle," Esposito says. "You going to open that? Don't think anyone at this table 'cept you gets to drink that more than once every five years."

"I'm opening it right now." One loud pop later and he's going round the table, stopping at each place to pour Champagne. Kate's still standing by his chair when he finishes his circuit. "Now, if you'll all lift your glasses, I have an announcement to make."

"So do I," Kate says. "It's the same one as his. We have an announcement to make."

"Here we go," Castle says, reaches into his pocket, takes out the ring and puts it on Kate's finger, just as he had in front of his mother.

They beam at each other and say, perfectly synchronized as always, "We're getting married!"

It might seem impossible for four people to create chaos, but they do. Two crystal champagne flutes land on the floor—but miraculously do not break—one chocolate mousse ends up on a lap, and all four voices are exercised at high decibels. When kisses and hugs have been fully exchanged, everyone sits down.

Espo turns to Ryan. "You owe me twenty bucks. Cough it up, bro."

"Gladly," says his partner, passing a twenty across the table.

"Gladly?" Lanie asks. "Since when do you gladly lose to him?"

"Since now," Beckett says from the edge of the chair that she's sharing with her no-longer-secret fiancé. "We'll pay Ryan back, with interest. Won't we Castle?" She kisses his ear.

"We will." He takes his wallet from his back pocket and fishes out a bill, which Kate takes from him.

"Sorry it's only a hundred, Ryan," she says, putting it in his hand. "I think we owe you more."

"What the—?" Espo bristles.

"Some people know how to keep their mouths shut," Beckett says, and lets Ryan and Jenny tell the story of the movie-theater meeting.

During the good-nights at the door, Lanie grabs Kate by the arm. "Alexander, huh? I can't believe you lied to me."

"It wasn't completely a lie. It's his middle name—and Martha was kind of the matchmaker."

When the guests are all in taxis, Kate and Castle collapse onto the sofa. "Leave the dishes," she says. "We can do them in the morning."

"That went well, don't you think?"

"It did. Very well."

"They were really surprised, even Ryan and Jenny, since they didn't know the whole story."

Kate snuggles up to him, and begins to unbutton his shirt. "Just imagine how they'll react," she coos, wrapping her hand around his ribs, "when I tell them I'm pregnant."

"You're _pregnant_?"

"No, that's a song for another night, Castle."

 **A/N** Thank you so much readers, especially those who left reviews that spurred me on. I really appreciate that there are still many people who want to read Castle fan fiction, even though the show is long gone. I hope to post the last chapter of "It's For You, Castle" within the next week, and then start something new.


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